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THEODORE  WATTS-DUNTON 

POET    NOVELIST    CRITIC 


ROM      A     PAINTING       BY      MtSS      H      BNORRIS. 


THEODORE    WATTS-DUNTON 


POET    NOVELIST    CRITIC 


BY 


JAMES    DOUGLAS 


WITH    TWENTY-FOUR  ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW   YORK 
JOHN    LANE 

67      FIFTH     AVENUE 


Butler  and  Tanner,  The  Stlwood  Printing;  Works,  Frame,  and  London 


Co  iWj)  iWotber 


SYNOPSIS 


PAGE 


Introduction  ......        i 

CHAPTER  I 
The  Renascence  of  Wonder  .         .  .11 

CHAPTER  H 
Cowslip    Country    ......       26 

CHAPTER  HI 
The  Critic  in  the  Bud  .....       40 

CHAPTER  IV 

Characters  in  the  Microcosm.  .  .  ♦      5° 

CHAPTER  V 
Early  Glimpses  of  the  Gypsies  .  •         .61 

CHAPTER  VI 
Sport  and  Work    ......       65 


viii  SYNOPSIS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  VII 
East  Anglia 72 

CHAPTER  VIII 
London  .  .  .  .  ...       87 

CHAPTER  IX 
George  Borrow     ......       95 

CHAPTER  X 
The  Acted  Drama  .  .  .  .  •      n? 

CHAPTER  XI 
Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  ....      138 

CHAPTER  XII 

William  Morris       .  .  ,  .  .  ,170 

CHAPTER  XIII 
The 'Examiner'       ......      183 


CHAPTER  XIV 

The  '  Athenaeum  '  . 


190 


SYNOPSIS  ix 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  XV 
The  Great  Book  of  Wonder  ....     228 

CHAPTER  XVI 
A  Humourist  upon  Humour  ....     242 

CHAPTER  XVII 
*The  Life  Poetic'  ......     262 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

American  Friends  :  Lowell,  Bret  Harte,  and 

Others  ......     295 

CHAPTER  XIX 
Wales     .  .         .         .         .         .         .  .312 

CHAPTER  XX 
Imaginative  and  Didactic  Prose    .  .  .321 

CHAPTER  XXI 
The  Methods  of  Prose  Fiction      .  .  ,     345 

CHAPTER  XXII 

A  Story  With  Two  Heroines         .  .  .     363 


X  SYNOPSIS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  XXIII 

The  Renascence  of  Wonder  in  Religion        .     372 

CHAPTER  XXIV 
The  Renascence  of  Wonder  in  Humour.  .     382 

CHAPTER  XXV 
GoRGios  AND  Romanies,  ....      389 

CHAPTER  XXVI 
*  The  Coming  of  Love  '  ....     393 

CHAPTER  XXVII 

"Christmas  at  the  ^Mermaid'"     ,  .     422 

CHAPTER  XXVIII 
Conclusion    .......     442 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Theodore   Watts-Dunton.     From    a    painting   by 

i-        Miss  H.  B.  Norris      .  .  .  Frontispiece 

FACING   PAGE 

Reverie.     Crayon  by  D.  G.  Rossetti  at '  The  Pines  '         i 

The  Ouse  at  Houghton  Mill,  Hunts.       (From  a 

Water  Colour  by  Fraser  at  '  The  Pines.')       .       28 

*  The  Thicket,'  St.  Ives.     (From  a  Water  Colour 

by  Fraser  at  *  The  Pines.')         ...       32 

Slepe  Hall :  Cromwell's  Supposed  Residence  at 
St.  Ives.  (From  an  Oil  Painting  at  *  The 
Pines.')        ....  .  .  -36 


xli  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING   PAGE 

'  Evening  Dreams  with  the  Poets.'    (From  an   Oil 

Painting  at  *The  Pines.')     ....       68 

A  Corner  in  '  The  Pines,'  showing  the  Painted  and 

Carved  Cabinet  .....       92 

A  Letter  Box  on  the  Broads.  (From  an  Oil  Paint- 
ing at  *The  Pines.')    .  .  .  .  .114 

Pandora.     Crayon  by  D.  G.  Rossetti  at '  The  Pines '     140 

*  The  Green  Dining  Room,'  16  Cheyne  Walk. 
(From  a  Painting  by  Dunn,  at  '  The 
Pines.')      .......      161 

One  of  the  Carved  Mirrors  at  '  The  Pines,'  de- 
corated with  Dunn's  copy  of  the  lost  Rossctti 
Frescoes  at  the  Oxford  Union     .  .  .162 

Kelmscott  Manor.     (From  a  Water  Colour  by|Miss 

May  Morris.)      .  .  .  .  .  .170 

'  The  Pines.'       (From    a   Drawing     by    Herbert 

Railton)  ......      262 


ILLUSTRATIONS  xiii 

FACING  PAGE 

A  Corner  in  '  The  Pines,'  showing  the  Lacquer 

Cabinet      .......     266 

Summer  at    '  The  Pines ' — I        .  .  .     268 

A  Cornerman  *  The  Pines,'  showing  the  Chinese 

Divan   described   in  '  Aylwin  '       .  ,  .      270 

Summer  at  '  The  Pines  ' — II        ....     274 

*  Picture  for  a  Story.'  (Face  and  Instrument 
designed  by  D.  G.  Rossetti,  background  by- 
Dunn.)       .......     276 

Ogwen  and  the  Glyders  from  Carnedd  Dafydd       .      312 

Moel  Siabod  and  the  River  Lledr  .  .  .314 

Snowdon  and  Glaslyn         .  .  .  .  .318 

Sinfi  Lovell  and  Pharaoh.     (From   a   Painting   at 

*  The  Pines.') 364 


xiv  ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING    PACE 


Henry  Aylwin  and  Winifred  under  the  Cliff 

(From  an  Oil  Painting  at  '  The  Pines.')       .     342 

'  John  the  Pilgrim.'     (By  Arthur  Hacker,  A.R.A.)       416 


NJTURJ  BENIGN  J 

What  power  is  this?  what  witchery  wins  my  feet 

To  peaks  so  sheer  they  scorn  the  cloaking  snow. 

All  silent  as  the  emerald  gulfs  below, 

Down  whose  ice-walls  the  wings  of  twilight  beat  ? 

What  thrill  of  earth  and  heaven — most  wild,  most  sweet- 

What  answering  pulse  that  all  the  senses  know. 

Comes  leaping  from  the  ruddy  eastern  glow 

Where,  far  away,  the  skies  and  mountains  meet  F 

Mother,  'tis  I  reborn  :    I  know  thee  well  : 

That  throb  I  know  and  all  it  prophesies, 

O  Mother  and  Queen,  beneath  the  olden  spell 

Of  silence,  gazing  from  thy  hills  and  skies  ! 

Dumb  Mother,  struggling  with  the  years  to  tell 

The  secret  at  thy  heart  through  helpless  eyes. 


'^i£f/i^.  ^?vvi-  ::'u/?t&u 


REVERIE. 

CRAYON     BY     D  .  G.  RO  S  S  ETTI  AT  TH  E    PINES. 


Introduction 

'  It  was  necessary  for  Thomas  Hood  still  to'do  one  thing  ere  the 
wide  circle  and  profound  depth  of  his  genius  were  to  the  full  ac- 
knowledged :  that  one  thing  was — to  die.' — Douglas  Jerrold. 

ALTHOUGH  in  the  inner  circle  of  English  letters 
this  study  of  a  living  writer  will  need  no  apology, 
it  may  be  well  to  explain  for  the  general  reader  the  rea- 
sons which  moved  me  to  undertake  it. 

Some  time  ago  a  distinguished  scholar,  the  late  S. 
Arthur  Strong,  Librarian  of  the  House  of  Lords,  was 
asked  what  had  been  the  chief  source  of  his  education. 
He  replied :  "  Cambridge,  scholastically,  and  Watts-Dun- 
ton's  articles  in  the  *  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  '  and  the 
*  AthensEum  '  from  the  purely  literary  point  of  view.  I 
have  been  a  reader  of  them  for  many  years,  and  it  would 
be  difhcult  for  me. to  say  what  I  should  have  been  without 
them."  Mr.  Richard  Le  Gallienne  has  said  that  he  bought 
the  *  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  '  simply  to  possess  one 
article — Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  article  on  Poetry.  There 
are  many  other  men  of  letters  who  would  give  similar 
testimony.  With  regard  to  his  critical  work,  Mr.  Swin- 
burne in  one  of  his  essays,  speaking  of  the  treatise  on 
Poetry,  describes  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  as  '  the  first  critic 
of  our  time,  perhaps  the  largest-minded  and  surest- 
sighted  of  any  age,'  ^  a  judgment  which,  according  to 
the  article  on  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  in  Chambers's  '  En- 
cyclopaedia,' Rossetti  endorsed.  In  this  same  article  it 
is  further  said  : — 

*'  He  came  to  exercise  a  most  important  influence  on 
the  art  and  culture  of  the  day  ;  but  although  he  has 
written  enough  to  fill  many  volumes — in  the  '  Examiner,' 

1  '  Studies  in  Prose.' 
W.-D.  X 


2  Introduction 

the  '  Athenaeum  '  (since  1876),  the  '  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury,' the  '  Fortnightly  Review,'  etc. — he  has  let  year 
after  year  go  by  without  his  collecting  his  essays,  which, 
always  dealing  with  first  principles,  have  ceased  to  be 
really  anonymous,  and  are  quoted  by  the  press  both  in 
England  and  in  Germany  as  his.  But,  having  wrapped 
up  his  talents  in  a  weekly  review,  he  is  only  ephemerally 
known  to  the  general  public,  except  for  the  sonnets 
and  other  poems  that,  from  the  *  Athenaeum,'  etc.,  have 
found  their  way  into  anthologies,  and  for  the  articles  on 
poetic  subjects  that  he  has  contributed  to  the  '  Ency- 
clopaedia Britannica,'  *  Chambers's  Encyclopaedia,'  etc. 
The  chief  note  of  his  poetry — much  of  it  written  in 
youth — is  its  individuality,  the  source  of  its  inspiration 
Nature  and  himself.  For  he  who  of  all  men  has  most 
influenced  his  brother  poets  has  himself  remained  least 
influenced  by  them.  So,  too,  his  prose  writings — liter- 
ary mainly,  but  ranging  also  over  folk-lore,  ethnology, 
and  science  generally — are  marked  as  much  by  their  in- 
dependence and  originality  as  by  their  suggestiveness, 
harmony,  incisive  vigour,  and  depth  and  breadth  of  in- 
sight. They  have  made  him  a  force  in  literature  to 
which  only  Sainte-Beuve,  not  Jeffrey,  is  a  parallel."^ 

These  citations  from  students  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's 
work,  written  before  his  theory  of  the  '  Renascence  of 
Wonder '  was  exemplified  in  '  Aylwin '  and  '  The 
Coming  of  Love,'  show,  I  think,  that  this  book  would 
have  had  a  right  to  exist  even  if  his  critical  writings 
had  been  collected  into  volumes ;  but  as  this  collection 
has  never  been  made,  and  I  believe  never  will  be  made 
by  the  author,  I  feel  that  to  do  what  I  am  now  doing  is 
to  render  the  reading  public  a  real  service.     For  many 

I  'Chambers's  Encyclopaedia,'  vol.  x.,  p.  5S1, 


Hero-Worship  In   Ireland  3 

years  he  has  been  urged  by  his  friends  to  collect  his  critical 
articles,  but  although  several  men  of  letters  have  offered 
to  relieve  him  of  that  task,  he  has  remained  obdurate. 

Speaking  for  myself,  I  scarcely  remember  the  time 
when  I  was  not  an  eager  student  of  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  writings.  Like  most  boys  born  with  the  itch 
for  writing,  I  began  to  spill  ink  on  paper  in  my  third 
lustre.  The  fermentation  of  the  soul  which  drove  me  to 
write  a  dreadful  elegy,  modelled  upon  '  Lycidas,'  on  the 
death  of  an  indulgent  aunt,  also  drove  me  to  welter  in 
drowsy  critical  journals.  By  some  humour  of  chance  I 
stumbled  upon  the  '  Athenaeum,'  and  there  I  found 
week  by  week  writing  that  made  me  tingle  with  the  rap- 
ture of  discovery.  The  personal  magic  of  some  unknown 
wizard  led  me  into  realms  of  gold  and  kingdoms  of  romance. 
I  used  to  count  the  days  till  the  '  Athenaeum '  appeared 
in  my  Irish  home,  and  I  spent  my  scanty  pocket  money  in 
binding  the  piled  numbers  into  ponderous  tomes.  Well 
I  remember  the  advent  of  the  old,  white-bearded  Ulster 
book-binder,  bearing  my  precious  volumes  :  even  now  I 
can  smell  the  pungent  odour  of  the  damp  paste  and  glue. 
In  those  days  I  was  a  solitary  bookworm,  living  far  from 
London,  and  I  vainly  tried  to  discover  the  name  of  the 
magician  who  was  carrying  me  into  so  '  many  goodly 
states  and  kingdoms,'  With  boyish  audacity  I  wrote  to 
the  editor  of  the  '  Athenaeum,'  begging  ,him  to  dis- 
close the  secret ;  and  I  am  sure  my  naive  appeal  pro- 
voked a  smile  in  Took's  Court.  But  although  the  editor 
was  dumb,  I  exulted  in  the  meagre  apparition  of  my 
initials,  '  J.  D.,'  under  the  solemn  rubric,  'To  Corres- 
pondents.' 

It  was  by  collating  certain  signed  sonnets  and  signed 
articles  with  the  unsigned  critical  essays  that  I  at  last 
discovered  the  name  of  my  hero,  Theodore  Watts.     Of 


4  Introduction 

course,  the  sonnets  set  me  sonneteering,  and  when  my 
execrable  imitation  of  '  Australia's  Mother '  was  printed 
in  the  *  Belfast  News-Letter '  I  felt  like  Byron  when  he 
woke  up  and  found  himself  famous.  Afterwards,  when 
I  had  plunged  into  the  surf  of  literary  London,  I  learnt 
that  the  writer  who  had  turned  my  boyhood  into  a 
romantic  paradise  was  well  known  in  cultivated  circles, 
but  quite  unknown  outside  them. 

There  was,  indeed,  no  account  of  him  in  print.  It  was 
not  till  1887  that  I  found  a  brief  but  masterly  memoir 
in  '  Celebrities  of  the  Century.'  The  article  concluded 
with  the  statement  that  in  the  '  Athenaeum '  and  in  the 
Ninth  Edition  of  the  *  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  '  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  had  '  founded  a  school  of  criticism  which 
discarded  conventional  authority,  and  sought  to  test  all 
literary  effects  by  the  light  of  first  principles  merely.' 
These  words  encouraged  me,  for  they  told  me  that  as  a 
boy  I  had  not  been  wrong  in  thinking  that  I  had  dis- 
covered a  master  and  a  guide  in  literature.  Then  came 
the  memoir  of  Philip  Bourke  Marston  by  the  American 
poetess,  Louise  Chandler  Moulton,  in  which  she  de- 
scribed Mr.  Watts-Dunton  as  *  a  poet  whose  noble 
work  won  for  him  the  intimate  friendship  of  Rossetti  and 
Browning  and  Lord  Tennyson,  and  was  the  first  link  in 
that  chain  of  more  than  brotherly  love  which  binds  him 
to  Swinburne,  his  housemate  at  present  and  for  many 
years  past.'  I  also  came  across  Clarence  Stedman's 
remarks  upon  the  opening  of  '  The  Coming  of  Love,' 
'  Mother  Carey's  Chicken,'  first  printed  in  the  '  Athe- 
naeum.' He  was  enthusiastic  about  the  poet's  per- 
ception of  '  Nature's  grander  aspects,'  and  spoke  of  his 
poetry  as  being  '  quite  independent  of  any  bias  derived 
from  the  eminent  poets  with  whom  his  life  has  been 
closely  associated,' 


The  Origin  of  this  Book  5 

When  afterwards  I  made  his  acquaintance,  our 
intercourse  led  to  the  formation  of  a  friendship  which 
has  deepened  my  gratitude  for  the  spiritual  and  in- 
tellectual guidance  I  have  found  in  his  writings  for 
nearly  twenty  years.  Owing  to  the  popularity  of 
*  The  Coming  of  Love  '  and  of  *  Aylwin  '  —  which 
the  late  Lord  Acton,  in  *The  Annals  of  PoHtics  and 
Culture,'  placed  at  the  head  of  the  three  most  im- 
portant books  published  in  1898 — Mr.  Watts-Dunton's 
name  is  now  familiar  to  every  fairly  educated  person. 
About  few  men  living  is  there  so  much  literary  curi- 
osity; and  this  again  is  a  reason  for  writing  a  book 
about  him. 

The  idea  of  making  an  elaborate  study  of  his  work, 
however,  did  not  come  to  me  until  I  received  an  in- 
vitation from  Dr.  Patrick,  the  editor  of  Chambers's 
'  Cyclopaedia  of  English  Literature,'  to  write  for  that 
publication  an  article  on  Mr.  Watts-Dunton — an  article 
which  had  been  allotted  to  Professor  Strong,  but  which  he 
had  been  obliged  through  indisposition  to  abandon  at 
the  last  moment.  I  undertook  to  do  this.  But  within 
the  limited  space  at  my  command  I  was  able  only 
very  briefly  to  discuss  his  work  as  a  poet.  Soon  after- 
wards I  was  invited  by  my  friend,  Dr.  Robertson  NicoU, 
to  write  a  monograph  upon  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  for 
Messrs.  Hodder  &  Stoughton,  and,  if  I  should  see  my  way 
to  do  so,  to  sound  him  on  the  subject.  My  only  diffi- 
culty was  in  approaching  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  for  I  knew 
how  constantly  he  had  been  urged  by  the  press  to  collect 
his  essays,  and  how  persistently  he  had  declined  to  do 
so.  Nevertheless,  I  wrote  to  him,  telling  him  how 
gladly  I  should  undertake  the  task,  and  how  sure  I 
was  that  the  book  was  called  for.  His  answer  was  so 
characteristic  that  I  must  give  it  here  : — 


6  Introduction 

"  My  dear  Mr.  Douglas, — It  must  now  be  some- 
thing like  fifteen  years  since  Mr.  John  Lane,  who  was 
then  compiling  a  bibliography  of  George  Meredith, 
asked  me  to  consent  to  his  compiling  a  bibliography  of 
my  articles  in  the  '  Athenaeum '  and  elsewhere,  and 
although  I  emphatically  declined  to  sanction  such  a 
bibliography,  he  on  several  occasions  did  me  the  honour 
to  renew  his  request.  I  told  him,  as  I  have  told  one  or 
two  other  generous  friends,  that  although  I  had  put  into 
these  articles  the  best  criticism  and  the  best  thought  at 
my  command,  I  considered  them  too  formless  to  have 
other  than  an  ephemeral  life.  I  must  especially  men- 
tion the  name  of  Mr.  Alfred  Nutt,  who  for  years  has 
been  urging  me  to  let  him  publish  a  selection  from  my 
critical  essays.  I  am  really  proud  to  record  this,  because 
Mr.  Nutt  is  not  only  an  eminent  publisher  but  an  ad- 
mirable scholar  and  a  man  of  astonishing  accomplish- 
ments. I  had  for  years,  let  me  confess,  cherished  the 
idea  that  some  day  I  might  be  able  to  take  my  various 
expressions  of  opinion  upon  literature,  especially  upon 
poetry,  and  mould  them  into  a  coherent  and,  perhaps, 
into  a  harmonious  whole.  This  alone  would  have  satis- 
fied me.  But  year  by  year  the  body  of  critical  writing 
from  my  pen  has  grown,  and  I  felt  and  feel  more  and  more 
unequal  to  the  task  of  grappling  with  such  a  mass.  To 
the  last  writer  of  eminence  who  gratified  me  by  suggest- 
ing a  collection  of  these  essays — Dr.  Robertson  Nicoll — I 
wrote,  and  wrote  it  with  entire  candour,  that  in  my  opin- 
ion the  view  generally  taken  of  the  value  of  them  is  too 
generous.  Still,  they  are  the  result  of  a  good  deal  of 
reflection  and  not  a  little  research,  especially  those  in 
the  *  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,'  and  I  am  not  so  en- 
tirely without  literary  aspiration  as  not  to  regret  that, 
years  ago,  when  the  mass  of  material  was  more  manage- 


A   Characteristic   Letter  7 

able,  I  neglected  to  collect  them  and  edit  them  myself. 
But  the  impulse  to  do  this  is  now  gone.  Owing  to  the 
quite  unexpected  popularity  of  *  The  Coming  of  Love  ' 
and  of  *  Aylwin,'  my  mind  has  been  diverted  from  criti- 
cism, and  plunged  into  those  much  more  fascinating 
waters  of  poetry  and  fiction  in  which  I  used  to  revel  long 
before.  If  you  really  think  that  a  selection  of  passages 
from  the  articles,  and  a  critical  examination  and  esti- 
mate of  the  imaginative  work  would  be  of  interest  to 
any  considerable  body  of  readers,  I  do  not  know  why 
I  should  withhold  my  consent.  But  I  confess,  judging 
from  such  work  of  your  own  as  I  have  seen,  I  find  it 
difficult  to  believe  that  it  is  worth  your  while  to  enter 
upon  any  such  task. 

I  agree  with  you  that  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  you 
are  to  present  and  expound  the  principles  of  criticism 
advanced  in  the  '  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,'  the  *  Athe- 
naeum,' etc.,  without  discussing  those  two  imaginative 
works  the  writing  of  which  inspired  the  canons  and 
generalizations  in  the  critical  work — '  Aylwin '  and  '  The 
Coming  of  Love.'  As  regards  '  Aylwin,'  however,  I  can- 
not help  wincing  under  the  thought  that  in  these  days 
when  so  much  genius  is  at  work  in  prose  fiction,  your 
discussion  will  seem  to  give  quite  an  undue  prominence 
to  a  writer  who  has  published  but  one  novel.  This 
I  confess  does  disturb  me  somewhat,  and  I  wish  you  to 
bear  well  in  mind  this  aspect  of  the  matter  before  you 
seriously  undertake  the  book.  As  to  the  prose  fiction 
of  the  present  moment,  I  constantly  stand  amazed 
at  its  wealth.  If,  however,  you  do  touch  upon 
'  Aylwin,'  I  hope  you  will  modify  those  generous — 
too  generous — expressions  of  yours  which,  I  remem- 
ber, you  printed  in  a  review  of  the  book  when  it 
first  appeared." 


8  Introduction 

After  getting  this  sanction  I  set  to  work,  and  soon 
found  that  my  chief  obstacle  was  the  superabundance  of 
material,  which  would  fill  several  folio  volumes.  But  al- 
though it  is  undoubtedly  *  a  mighty  maze,  it  is  '  not 
without  a  plan.'  In  a  certain  sense  the  vast  number 
of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  generalizations  upon  literature, 
art,  philosophy,  and  what  Emerson  calls  '  the  conduct 
of  life,'  revolve  round  certain  fixed  principles  which 
have  guided  me  in  the  selection  I  have  made.  I  also 
found  that  to  understand  these  principles  of  romantic  art, 
it  was  necessary  to  make  a  thorough  critical  study  of 
the  romance,  '  Aylwin,'  and  of  the  book  of  poems,  '  The 
Coming  of  Love.'  I  think  I  have  made  that  study,  and 
that  I  have  connected  the  critical  system  with  the 
imaginative  work  more  thoroughly  than  has  been  done 
by  any  other  writer,  although  the  work  of  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton,  both  creative  and  critical,  has  been  acutely 
discussed,  not  only  in  England  but  also  in  France  and  in 
Italy. 

The  creative  originality  of  his  criticism  is  as  absolute 
as  that  of  his  poetry  and  fiction.  He  poured  into  his 
criticism  the  intellectual  and  imaginative  force  which 
other  men  pour  into  purely  artistic  channels,  for  he 
made  criticism  a  vehicle  for  his  humour,  his  philosophy, 
and  his  irony.  His  criticisms  are  the  reflections  of 
a  lifetime.  Their  vitality  is  not  impaired  by  the  im- 
permanence  of  their  texts.  No  critic  has  surpassed  his 
universality  of  range.  Out  of  a  full  intellectual  and 
imaginative  life  he  has  evolved  speculations  which  cut 
deep  not  only  into  the  fibre  of  modern  thought  but  into 
the  future  of  human  development.  Great  teachers  have 
their  day  and  their  disciples.  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  day 
and  disciples  belong  to  the  young  future  whose  dawn 
some  of  us  already  descry.     For,  as  Mr.  Justin  McCarthy 


Plan  of  the  Book  9 

wrote  of  *  Aylwin,'  *  it  is  inspired  by  the  very  spirit  of 
youth,'  and  this  is  why  so  many  of  the  younger  writers 
are  beginning  to  accept  him  as  their  guide.  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  has  built  up  a  new  optimistic  philosophy  of  life 
which,  I  think,  is  sure  to  arrest  the  devastating  march  of 
the  pessimists  across  the  history  of  the  soul  of  man.  That 
is  the  aspect  of  his  work  which  calls  for  the  comprehen- 
sion of  the  new  generation.  The  old  cosmogonies  are 
dead  ;  here  is  the  new  cosmogony,  the  cosmogony  in 
which  the  impulse  of  wonder  reasserts  its  sovereignty, 
proclaiming  anew  the  nobler  religion  of  the  spiritual 
imagination,  with  a  faith  in  Natura  Benigna  which  no 
assaults  of  science  can  shake. 

But,  although  the  main  object  of  this  book  is  to  focus, 
as  it  were,  the  many  scattered  utterances  of  Mr.  Watts- 
Dun  ton  in  prose  and  poetry  upon  the  great  subject  of 
the  Renascence  of  Wonder,  I  have  interspersed  here  and 
there  essays  which  do  not  touch  upon  this  theme,  and 
also  excerpts  from  those  obituary  notices  of  his  friends 
which  formed  so  fascinating  a  part  of  his  contributions 
to  the  '  Athenaeum.'  For,  of  course,  it  was  necessary 
to  give  the  charm  of  variety  to  the  book.  Rossetti  used 
to  say,  I  believe,  that  there  is  one  quality  necessary  in  a 
poem  which  very  many  poets  are  apt  to  ignore — the 
quality  of  being  amusing.  I  have  always  thought 
that  there  is  great  truth  in  this,  and  I  have  also  thought 
that  the  remark  is  applicable  to  prose  no  less  than  to 
poetry.  This  is  why  I  have  occasionally  enlivened  these 
pages  with  extracts  from  his  picturesque  monographs  ; 
indeed,  I  have  done  more  than  this.  Not  having  known 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  great  contemporaries  myself,  I  have 
looked  about  me  for  the  aid  of  certain  others  who  did 
know  them.  I  have  not  hesitated  to  collect  from  various 
sources  such  facts  and  details  connected  with  Mr.  Watts- 


lo  Introduction 

Dunton  and  his  friends  as  are  necessarily  beyond  the 
scope  of  my  own  experience  and  knowledge.  Among 
these  I  must  prominently  mention  one  to  whom  I  have 
been  specially  indebted  for  reminiscences  of  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  and  his  circle.  This  is  Mr.  Thomas  St.  E.  Hake, 
eldest  son  of  the  '  parable  poet,'  a  gentleman  of  much 
too  modest  and  retiring  a  disposition,  who,  from  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton's  first  appearance  in  London  right  on- 
wards, was  brought  into  intimate  relations  with  himself, 
his  relatives,  Rossetti,  William  Morris,  Westland  Mar- 
ston,  Philip  Bourke  Marston,  Madox  Brown,  George 
Borrow,  Stevenson,  Minto,  and  many  others.  I  have 
not  only  made  free  use  of  his  articles,  but  I  have  had 
the  greatest  aid  from  him  in  many  other  respects,  and 
it  is  my  bare  duty  to  express  my  gratitude  to  him  for 
his  services.  I  have  also  to  thank  the  editor  of  the 
^Athenseum  '  for  cordially  granting  me  permission  to  quote 
so  freely  from  its  columns ;  and  I  take  this  opportunity 
of  acknowledging  my  debt  to  the  many  other  pub- 
lications from  which  I  have  drawn  materials  for  this 
book. 


Chapter  I 


THE  RENASCENCE  OF  WONDER 

" '  The  renascence  of  wonder,'  to  employ  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's 
appellation  for  what  he  justly  considers  the  most  striking  and 
significant  feature  in  the  great  romantic  revival  which  has 
transformed  literature,  is  proclaimed  by  this  very  appella- 
tion not  to  be  the  achievement  of  any  one  innovator,  but  a 
general  reawakening  of  mankind  to  a  perception  that  there 
were  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth  than  were  dreamt  of 
in  Horatio's  philosophy." — Dr.  R.  Garnett:  Monograph 
on  Coleridge. 

UNDOUBTEDLY  the  greatest  philosophical  gener- 
alization of  our  time  is  expressed  in  the  four 
words,  '  The  Renascence  of  Wonder.'  They  suggest 
that  great  spiritual  theory  of  the  universe  which, 
according  to  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  is  bound  to  follow 
the  wave  of  materialism  that  set  in  after  the  publication 
of  Darwin's  great  book.  This  phrase,  which  I  first 
became  familiar  with  in  his  '  Encyclopaedia  Britannica ' 
article  on  Rossetti,  seems  really  to  have  been  used  first 
in  '  Aylwin.'  The  story  seems  originally  to  have  been 
called  '  The  Renascence  of  Wonder,'  but  the  title  was 
abandoned  because  the  writer  believed  that  an  un- 
suggestive  name,  such  as  that  of  the  autobiographer, 
was  better  from  the  practical  point  of  view.  For 
the  knowledge  of  this  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Hake, 
who  says  : — 


1 2  The  Renascence  of  Wonder 

"  During  the  time  that  Mr.  Swinburne  was  living 
in  Great  James  Street,  several  of  his  friends  had  cham- 
bers in  the  same  street,  and  among  them  were  my  late 
father,  Dr.  Gordon  Hake — Rossetti's  friend  and  phy- 
sician— Mr.  Watts-Dunton  and  myself.  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton,  as  is  well  known,  was  a  brilliant  raconteur  long 
before  he  became  famous  as  a  writer.  I  have  heard  him 
tell  scores  of  stories  full  of  plot  and  character  that  have 
never  appeared  in  print.  On  a  certain  occasion  he  was 
suffering  from  one  of  his  periodical  eye  troubles  that  had 
used  occasionally  to  embarrass  him.  He  had  just  been 
telling  Mr.  Swinburne  the  plot  of  a  suggested  story,  the 
motive  of  which  was  the  '  renascence  of  wonder  in  art 
and  poetry '  depicting  certain  well-known  characters. 

I  offered  to  act  as  his  amanuensis  in  writing  the  story, 
and  did  so,  with  the  occasional  aid  of  my  father  and 
brothers.  The  story  was  sent  to  the  late  F.  W.  Robin- 
son, the  novelist,  then  at  the  zenith  of  his  vogue,  who 
declared  that  he  *  saw  a  fortune  in  it,'  and  it  was  he 
who  advised  the  author  to  send  it  to  Messrs.  Hurst  & 
Blackett.  As  far  as  I  remember,  the  time  occupied  by 
the  work  was  between  five  and  six  months.  When  a 
large  portion  of  it  was  in  type  it  was  read  by  many  friends, 
— among  others  by  the  late  Madox  Brown,  who  thought 
some  of  the  portraits  too  close,  as  the  characters  were  then 
all  living,  except  one,  the  character  who  figures  as  Cyril. 
Although  unpublished,  it  was  so  well  known  that  an 
article  upon  it  appeared  in  the  '  Liverpool  Mercury.' 
This  was  more  than  twenty  years  ago." 

The  important  matter  before  us,  however,  is  not  when 
he  first  used  this  phrase,  which  has  now  become  a  sort  of 
literary  shorthand  to  express  a  wide  and  sweeping  idea, 
but  what  it  actually  imports.     Fortunately  Mr.  Watts- 


The  New  Doctrine  Stated  13 

Dunton  has  quite  lately  given  us  a  luminous  exposition 
of  what  the  words  do  precisely  mean.  Last  year  he 
wrote  for  that  invaluable  work,  Chambers's  '  Cyclo- 
paedia of  English  Literature,'  the  Introduction  to 
volume  iii.,  and  no  one  can  any  longer  say  that  there  is 
any  ambiguity  in  this  now  famous  phrase  : — 

"  As  the  storm-wind  is  the  cause  and  not  the  effect  of 
the  mighty  billows  at  sea,  so  the  movement  in  question 
was  the  cause  and  not  the  effect  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. It  was  nothing  less  than  a  great  revived  movement 
of  the  soul  of  man,  after  a  long  period  of  prosaic  accept- 
ance in  all  things,  including  literature  and  art.  To  this 
revival  the  present  writer,  in  the  introduction  to  an 
imaginative  work  dealing  with  this  movement,  has 
already,  for  convenience'  sake,  and  in  default  of  a  better 
one,  given  the  name  of  the  Renascence  of  Wonder.  As 
was  said  on  that  occasion,  '  The  phrase,  the  Renascence 
of  Wonder,  merely  indicates  that  there  are  two  great 
impulses  governing  man,  and  probably  not  man  only,  but 
the  entire  world  of  conscious  life  :  the  impulse  of  accept- 
ance— the  impulse  to  take  unchallenged  and  for  granted 
all  the  phenomena  of  the  outer  world  as  they  are — and 
the  impulse  to  confront  these  phenomena  with  eyes  of 
inquiry  and  wonder.'  It  would  seem  that  something 
works  as  inevitably  and  as  logically  as  a  physical  law  in 
the  yearning  which  societies  in  a  certain  stage  of  develop- 
ment show  to  get  away,  as  far  away  as  possible,  from  the 
condition  of  the  natural  man  ;  to  get  away  from  that 
despised  condition  not  only  in  material  affairs,  such  as 
dress,  domestic  arrangements  and  economies,  but  also 
in  the  fine  arts  and  in  intellectual  methods,  till,  having 
passed  that  inevitable  stage,  each  society  is  liable  to  suffer 
(even  if  it  does  not  in  some  cases  actually  suffer)  a  re- 


14  The  Renascence   of  Wonder 

action,  when  nature  and  art  are  likely  again  to  take  the 
place  of  convention  and  artifice.  Anthropologists  have 
often  asked,  v^^hat  was  that  lever-power  lying  enfolded 
in  the  dark  womb  of  some  remote  semi-human  brain, 
which,  by  first  stirring,  lifting,  and  vitalizing  other 
potential  and  latent  faculties,  gave  birth  to  man  ?  Would 
it  be  rash  to  assume  that  this  lever-power  was  a  vigorous 
movement  of  the  faculty  of  wonder  ?  But  certainly  it 
is  not  rash,  as  regards  the  races  of  man,  to  afiirm  that  the 
more  intelligent  the  race  the  less  it  is  governed  by  the 
instinct  of  acceptance,  and  the  more  it  is  governed  by 
the  instinct  of  wonder,  that  instinct  which  leads  to  the 
movement  of  challenge.  The  alternate  action  of  the 
two  great  warring  instincts  is  specially  seen  just  now  in 
the  Japanese.  Here  the  instinct  of  challenge  which 
results  in  progress  became  active  up  to  a  certain  point, 
and  then  suddenly  became  arrested,  leaving  the  instinct 
of  acceptance  to  have  full  play,  and  then  everything 
became  crystallized.  Ages  upon  ages  of  an  immense 
activity  of  the  instinct  of  challenge  were  required 
before  the  Mongolian  savage  was  developed  into  the 
Japanese  of  the  period  before  the  nature-worship  of 
*  Shinto  '  had  been  assaulted  by  dogmatic  Buddhism. 
But  by  that  time  the  instinct  of  challenge  had  resulted 
in  such  a  high  state  of  civilization  that  acceptance  set  [in 
and  there  was  an  end,  for  the  time  being,  of  progress. 
There  is  no  room  here  to  say  even  a  few  words  upon  other 
great  revivals  in  past  times,  such,  for  instance,  as  the 
Jewish-Arabian  renascence  of  the  ninth  and  tenth  cen- 
turies, when  the  interest  in  philosophical  speculation, 
which  had  previously  been  arrested,  was  revived  ;  when 
the  old  sciences  were  revived  ;  and  when  some  modern 
sciences  were  born.  There  are,  of  course,  different 
kinds  of  wonder." 


The   Old  Wonder  and  the   New  15 

This  passage  has  a  peculiar  interest  for  me,  because 
I  instinctively  compare  it  with  the  author's  speech 
delivered  at  the  St.  Ives  old  Union  Book  Club  dinner 
when  he  was  a  boy.  It  shows  the  same  wide  vision,  the 
same  sweep,  and  the  same  rush  of  eloquence.  It  is  in 
view  of  this  great  generalization  that  I  have  determined 
to  quote  that  speech  later. 

The  essay  then  goes  on  in  a  swift  way  to  point  out 
the  different  kinds  of  wonder  : — 

"  Primitive  ^poetry  is  full  of  wonder — the  naYve  and 
eager  wonder  of  the  healthy  child.  It  is  this  kind  of 
wonder  which  makes  the  '  Iliad  '  and  the  '  Odyssey '  so 
deHghtful.  The  wonder  of  primitive  poetry  passes  as  the 
primitive  conditions  of  civilization  pass ;  and  then  for  the 
most  part  it  can  only  be  succeeded  by  a  very  different 
kind  of  wonder — the  wonder  aroused  by  a  recognition 
of  the  mystery  of  man's  life  and  the  mystery  of  nature's 
theatre  on  which  the  human  drama  is  played — the  wonder, 
in  short,  of  ^schylus  and  Sophocles.  And  among  the 
Romans,  Virgil,  though  living  under  the  same  kind  of 
Augustan  acceptance  in  which  Horace,  the  typical  poet 
of  acceptance,  lived,  is  full  of  this  latter  kind  of  wonder. 
Among  the  English  poets  who  preceded  the  great  Eliza- 
bethan epoch  there  is  no  room,  and  indeed  there  is  no 
need,  to  allude  to  any  poet  besides  Chaucer  ;  and  even 
he  can  only  be  slightly  touched  upon.  He  stands  at  the 
head  of  those  who  are  organized  to  see  more  clearly  than 
we  can  ourselves  see  the  wonder  of  the  '  world  at  hand.' 
Of  the  poets  whose  wonder  is  of  the  simply  terrene  kind, 
those  whose  eyes  are  occupied  by  the  beauty  of  the  earth 
and  the  romance  of  human  Hfe,  he  is  the  EngHsh  king. 
But  it  is  not  the  wonder  of  Chaucer  that  is  to  be  specially 
discussed  in  the  following  sentences.     It  is  the  spiritual 


1 6  The  Renascence  of  Wonder 

wonder  which  in  our  literature  came  afterwards.  It  is 
that  kind  of  wonder  which  filled  the  souls  of  Spenser,  of 
Marlowe,  of  Shakespeare,  of  Webster,  of  Ford,  of  Cyril 
Tourneur,  and  of  the  old  ballads  :  it  is  that  poetical 
attitude  which  the  human  mind  assumes  when  con- 
fronting those  unseen  powers  of  the  universe  who,  if  they 
did  not  weave  the  web  in  which  man  finds  himself  en- 
tangled, dominate  it.  That  this  high  temper  should 
have  passed  and  given  place  to  a  temper  of  prosaic 
acceptance  is  quite  inexplicable,  save  by  the  theory  of 
the  action  and  reaction  of  the  two  great  warring  im- 
pulses advanced  in  the  foregoing  extract  from  the  Intro- 
duction to  *  Aylwin.'  Perhaps  the  difference  between 
the  temper  of  the  Elizabethan  period  and  the  temper  of 
the  Chaucerian  on  the  one  hand,  and  Augustanism  on 
the  other,  will  be  better  understood  by  a  brief  reference 
to  the  humour  of  the  respective  periods." 

Then  come  luminous  remarks  upon  his  theory  of  abso- 
lute and  relative  humour,  which  I  shall  deal  with  in 
relation  to  that  type  of  absolute  humour,  his  own 
Mrs.  Gudgeon  in  *  Aylwin.' 

I  will  now  quote  a  passage  from  an  article  in  the 
*  Quarterly  Review  '  on  William  Morris  by  one  of  Morris's 
intimate  friends  : — 

"The  decorative  renascence  in  England  is  but  an 
expression  of  the  spirit  of  the  pre-Raphaelite  movement 
— a  movement  which  has  been  defined  by  the  most  emi' 
nent  of  living  critics  as  the  renascence  of  the  *  spirit  of 
wonder  '  in  poetry  and  art.  So  defined,  it  falls  into 
proper  relationship  with  the  continuous  development 
of  English  literature,  and  of  the  romantic  movement, 
during  the  last  century  and  a  half,  and  is  no  longer  to  be 


The  'Quarterly'  on  the  Subject  17 

considered  an  isolated  phenomenon  called  into  being  by 
an  erratic  genius.  The  English  Romantic  school,  from 
its  first  inception  with  Chatterton,  Macpherson,  and  the 
publication  of  the  Percy  ballads,  does  not,  as  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  has  finely  pointed  out,  aim  merely  at  the  revival 
of  natural  language  ;  it  seeks  rather  to  reach  through  art 
and  the  forgotten  world  of  old  romance,  that  world  of 
wonder  and  mystery  and  spiritual  beauty  of  which  poets 
gain  glimpses  through 

magic  casements,  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas,  in  faery  lands  forlorn." 

In  an  essay  on  Rossetti,  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  says:  — 

"  It  was  by  inevitable  instinct  that  Rossetti  turned  to 
that  mysterious  side  of  nature  and  man's  life  which  to 
other  painters  of  his  time  had  been  a  mere  fancy-land, 
to  be  visited,  if  at  all,  on  the  wings  of  sport.  It  is  not 
only  in  such  masterpieces  of  his  maturity  as  Dante's 
Dream,  La  Pia,  etc.,  but  in  such  early  designs  as  How 
they  Met  Themselves,  La  Belle  Dame  sans  Merci, 
Cassandra,  etc.,  that  Rossetti  shows  how  important  a 
figure  he  is  in  the  history  of  modern  art,  if  modern  art 
claims  to  be  anything  more  than  a  mechanical  imitation 
of  the  facts  of  nature. 

For  if  there  is  any  permanent  vitality  in  the  Renas- 
cence of  Wonder  in  modern  Europe,  if  it  is  not  a  mere 
passing  mood,  if  it  is  really  the  inevitable  expression  of 
the  soul  of  man  in  a  certain  stage  of  civilization  (when 
the  sanctions  which  have  made  and  moulded  society  are 
found  to  be  not  absolute  and  eternal,  but  relative,  mun- 
dane, ephemeral,  and  subject  to  the  higher  sanctions 
of   unseen    powers    that    work    behind  '  the   shows   of 

W.-D,  2 


1 8  The    Renascence   of  Wonder 

things '),  then  perhaps  one  of   the  first  questions  to  ask 
in  regard   to  any  imaginative  painter  of  the   nineteenth 
century  is,  In  what  relation  does  he  stand  to  the  newly- 
awakened  spirit   of   romance  ?     Had  he  a  genuine  and 
independent  sympathy  with  that  temper  of  wonder  and 
mystery  which  all  over  Europe  had  preceded  and  now 
followed  the  temper  of  imitation,  prosaic    acceptance, 
pseudo-classicism,  and  domestic  materialism  ?     Or  was  his 
apparent  sympathy  with  the  temper  of  wonder,  reverence 
and  awe  the  result  of  artistic  environment  dictated  to  him 
by  other  and  more  powerful  and  original  souls  around  him? 
I  do  not  say  that  the  mere  fact  of  a  painter's  or  poet's 
showing  but  an  imperfect  sympathy  with  the  Renas- 
cence of  Wonder  is  sufficient  to  place  him  below  a  poet 
in  whom  that  sympathy  is  more  nearly  complete,  be- 
cause we  should  then  be  driven  to  place  some  of  the  dis- 
ciples of  Rossetti  above  our  great  realistic  painters,  and 
we  should  be  driven  to  place  a  poet  like  the  author  of 
'  The  Excursion  '  and  '  The    Prelude  '  beneath  a  poet 
like  the  author  of  '  The  Queen's  Wake  '  ;  but  we  do  say 
that,  other  things  being  equal  or  anything  like  equal,  a 
painter  or  poet  of  our  time  is  to  be  judged  very  much  by 
his  sympathy  with  that  great  movement  which  we  call 
the  Renascence  of  Wonder — call  it  so  because  the  word 
romanticism  never  did  express  it  even  before  it  had  been 
vulgarized  by  French  poets,  dramatists,  doctrinaires,  and 
literary  harlequins. 

To  struggle  against  the  prim  traditions  of  the  eight- 
eenth century,  the  unities  of  Aristotle,  the  delineation  of 
types  instead  of  character,  as  Chateaubriand,  Madame 
de  Stael,  Balzac,  and  Hugo  struggled,  was  well.  But  in 
studying  Rossetti's  works  we  reach  the  very  key  of  those 
*  high  palaces  of  romance  '  which  the  English  mind  had 
never,  even  in  the  eighteenth  century,  wholly  forgotten, 


'The    Demon    Lover,'    '  Christabel,'  etc.      19 

but  whose  mystic  gates  no  Frenchman  ever  yet  unlocked. 
Not  all  the  romantic  feeling  to  be  found  in  all  the  French 
romanticists  (with  their  theory  that  not  earnestness  but 
the  grotesque  is  the  life-blood  of  romance)  could  equal 
the  romantic  spirit  expressed  in  a  single  picture  or  draw- 
ing of  Rossetti's,  such,  for  instance,  as  Beata  Beatrix  or 
Pandora. 

For  while  the  French  romanticists — inspired  by  the 
theories  (drawn  from  English  exemplars)  of  Novalis, 
Tieck,  and  Herder — cleverly  simulated  the  old  romantic 
feeling,  the  '  beautifully  devotional  feeling '  which  Hol- 
man  Hunt  speaks  of,  Rossetti  was  steeped  in  it  :  he  was 
so  full  of  the  old  frank  childlike  wonder  and  awe  which 
preceded  the  great  renascence  of  materialism  that  he 
might  have  lived  and  worked  amidst  the  old  masters. 
Hence,  in  point  of  design,  so  original  is  he  that  to  match 
such  ideas  as  are  expressed  in  Lilith,  Hesterna  Rosa, 
Michael  Scott's  Wooing,  the  Sea  Spell,  etc.,  we  have  to 
turn  to  the  sister  art  of  poetry,  where  only  we  can  find  an 
equally  powerful  artistic  representation  of  the  idea 
at  the  core  of  the  old  romanticism — the  idea  of  the  evil 
forces  of  nature  assailing  man  through  his  sense  of  beauty. 
We  must  turn,  we  say,  not  to  art — not  even  to  the  old 
masters  themselves — but  to  the  most  perfect  efflores- 
cence of  the  poetry  of  wonder  and  mystery — to  such 
ballads  as  '  The  Demon  Lover,'  to  Coleridge's  '  Chris- 
tabel '  and  '  Kubla  Khan,'  to  Keats's  '  La  Belle  Dame 
sans  Merci,'  for  parallels  to  Rossetti's  most  characteristic 
designs." 

These  words  about  Coleridge  recall  to  the  students  of 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  work  a  splendid  illustration  of  the 
true  wonder  of  the  great  poetic  temper  which  he  gives 
in  the   before-mentioned   essay   on   The    Renascence  of 


20  The   Renascence   of  Wonder 

Wonder  in  Chambers's  '  Cyclopaedia  of  English  Litera- 
ture '  : — 

"  Coleridge's  '  Christabel,'  '  The  Ancient  Mariner,' 
and  '  Kubla  Khan  '  are,  as  regards  the  romantic  spirit, 
above — and  far  above — any  work  of  any  other  English 
poet.  Instances  innumerable  might  be  adduced  show- 
ing how  his  very  nature  was  steeped  in  the  fountain  from 
which  the  old  balladists  themselves  drew,  but  in  this 
brief  and  rapid  survey  there  is  room  to  give  only  one. 
In  the  '  Conclusion  '  of  the  first  part  of  '  Christabel ' 
he  recapitulates  and  summarizes,  in  lines  that  are  at  once 
matchless  as  poetry  and  matchless  in  succinctness  of 
statement,  the  entire  story  of  the  bewitched  maiden 
and  her  terrible  foe  which  had  gone  before  : — 

A  star  hath  set,  a  star  hath  risen, 

O  Geraldine  i  since  arms  of  thine 

Have  been  the  lovely  lady's  prison. 

O  Geraldine  !    one  hour  was  thine — 

Thou'st  had  thy  will !     By  tairn  and  rill. 

The  night-birds  all  that  hour  were  still. 

But  now  they  are  jubilant  anew, 

From  cliff  and  tower,  tu-whoo  !  tu-whoo  ! 

Tu-whoo  !    tu-whoo  !    from  wood  and  fell  ! 

Here  we  get  that  feeling  of  the  inextricable  web  in 
which  the  human  drama  and  external  nature  are  woven 
which  is  the  very  soul  of  poetic  wonder.  So  great  is  the 
maleficent  power  of  the  beautiful  witch  that  a  spell  is 
thrown  over  all  Nature.  For  an  hour  the  very  woods  and 
fells  remain  in  a  shuddering  state  of  sympathetic  con- 
sciousness of  her — 

The  night-birds  all  that  hour  were  still. 

When  the  spell  is  passed  Nature  awakes  as  from  a  hideous 
nightmare,  and   '  the   night-birds '    are   jubilant   anew. 


Salaman    and   Absal  ;    Pandora  21 

This  is  the  very  highest  reach  of  poetic  wonder — finer, 
if  that  be  possible,  than  the  night-storm  during  the 
murder  of  Duncan." 

And  now  let  us  turn  again  to  the  essay  upon 
Rossetti  from  which  I  have  already  quoted : — 

"  Although  the  idea  at  the  heart  of  the  highest 
romantic  poetry  (allied  perhaps  to  that  apprehension  of 
the  warring  of  man's  soul  with  the  appetites  of  the  flesh 
which  is  the  basis  of  the  Christian  idea),  may  not  belong 
exclusively  to  what  we  call  the  romantic  temper  (the 
Greeks,  and  also  most  Asiatic  peoples,  were  more  or  less 
familiar  with  it,  as  we  see  in  the  '  Salaman  '  and  '  Absal ' 
of  Jami),  yet  it  became  a  peculiarly  romantic  note,  as  is 
seen  from  the  fact  that  in  the  old  masters  it  resulted  in 
that  asceticism  which  is  its  logical  expression  and  which 
was  once  an  inseparable  incident  of  all  romantic  art. 
But,  in  order  to  express  this  stupendous  idea  as  fully  as 
the  poets  have  expressed  it,  how  is  it  possible  to  adopt 
the  asceticism  of  the  old  masters  ?  This  is  the  question 
that  Rossetti  asked  himself,  and  answered  by  his  own 
progress  in  art." 

In  the  same  article,  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  discusses  the 
crowning  specimen  of  Rossetti's  romanticism  before  it  had, 
as  it  were,  gone  to  seed  and  passed  into  pure  mysticism, 
the  grand  design,  *  Pandora,'  of  which  he  possesses  by 
far  the  noblest  version  : — 

"  In  it  is  seen  at  its  highest  Rossetti's  unique  faculty 
of  treating  classical  legend  in  the  true  romantic  spirit. 
The  grand  and  sombre  beauty  of  Pandora's  face,  the 
mysterious  haunting  sadness  in  her  deep  blue-grey  eyes 


22  The    Renascence   of  Wonder 

as  she  tries  in  vain  to  re-close  the  fatal  box  from 
which  are  still  escaping  the  smoke  and  flames  that 
shape  themselves  as  they  curl  over  her  head  into 
shadowy  spirit  faces,  grey  with  agony,  between  tortured 
wings  of  sullen  fire,  are  in  the  highest  romantic 
mood." 

It  is  my  privilege  to  be  allowed  to  give  here  a 
reproduction  of  this  masterpiece,  for  which  I  and  my 
publishers  cannot  be  too  grateful.  The  influence  of 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  teachings  is  seen  in  the  fact 
that  the  idea  of  the  Renascence  of  Wonder  has  be- 
come expanded  by  theological  writers  and  divines  in 
order  to  include  within  its  scope  subjects  connected 
with  religion.  Among  others  Dr.  Robertson  NicoU 
has  widened  its  ambit  in  a  remarkable  way  in  an  essay 
upon  Dr.  Alexander  White's  '  Appreciation  '  of  Bishop 
Butler.  He  quotes  one  of  the  Logia  discovered  by 
the  explorers  of  the  Egypt  Fund  : — *  Let  not  him 
that  seeketh  cease  from  his  search  until  he  find, 
and  when  he  finds  he  shall  wonder  :  wondering  he 
shall  reach  the  kingdom,  and  when  he  reaches  the 
kingdom  he  shall  have  rest.'  He  then  points  out  that 
Bishop  Butler  was  *  one  of  the  first  to  share  in  the 
Renascence  of  Wonder,  which  was  the  Renascence  of 
religion.' 

And  now  I  must  quote  a  passage  alluding  to  the 
generalization  upon  absolute  and  relative  humour  which 
I  shall  give  later  when  discussing  the  humour  of 
Mrs.  Gudgeon.  I  shall  not  be  able  in  these  remarks 
to  dwell  upon  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  as  a  humourist,  but 
the  extracts  will  speak  for  themselves.  Writing  of  the 
great  social  Pyramid  of  the  Augustan  age,  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  says  : — 


The   Pyramid   of  Augustanism  23 

"  This  Augustan  pyramid  of  ours  had  all  the  sym- 
metry which  Blackstone  so  much  admired  in  the  English 
constitution  and  its  laws ;  and  when,  afterwards,  the 
American  colonies  came  to  revolt  and  set  up  a  pyramid 
of  their  own,  it  was  on  the  Blackstonian  model.  At 
the  base — patient  as  the  tortoise  beneath  the  elephant  in 
the  Indian  cosmogony — was  the  people,  born  to  be  the 
base  and  born  for  nothing  else.  Resting  on  this  founda- 
tion were  the  middle  classes  in  their  various  strata,  each 
stratum  sharply  marked  off  from  the  others.  Then  above 
these  was  the  strictly  genteel  class,  the  patriciate,  pic- 
turesque and  elegant  in  dress  if  in  nothing  else,  whose 
privileges  were  theirs  as  a  matter  of  right.  Above  the 
patriciate  was  the  earthly  source  of  gentility,  the  mon- 
arch, who  would,  no  doubt,  have  been  the  very  apex  of 
the  sacred  structure  save  that  a  little — a  very  little — 
above  him  sat  God,  the  suzerain  to  whom  the  prayers  even 
of  the  monarch  himself  were  addressed.  The  leaders  of 
the  Rebellion  had  certainly  done  a  daring  thing,  and  an 
original  thing,  by  striking  off  the  apex  of  this  pyramid, 
and  it  might  reasonably  have  been  expected  that  the 
building  itself  would  collapse  and  crumble  away.  But 
it  did  nothing  of  the  kind.  It  was  simply  a  pyramid 
with  the  apex  cut  off — a  structure  to  serve  afterwards  as 
a  model  of  the  American  and  French  pyramids,  both  of 
which,  though  aspiring  to  be  original  structures,  are 
really  built  on  exactly  the  same  scheme  of  hereditary 
honour  and  dishonour  as  that  upon  which  the  pyramids 
of  Nineveh  and  Babylon  were  no  doubt  built.  Then 
came  the  Restoration  :  the  apex  was  restored  :  the 
structure  was  again  complete  ;  it  was,  indeed,  more  solid 
than  ever,  stronger  than  ever. 

Vv'^ith  regard  to  what  we  have  called  the  realistic  side 
of  the   romantic   movement  as   distinguished   from   its 


24  The   Renascence   of  Wonder 

purely  poetical  and  supernatural  side,  Nature  was  for  the 
Augustan  temper  much  too  ungenteel  to  be  described 
realistically.  Yet  we  must  not  suppose  that  in  the  eight- 
eenth century  Nature  turned  out  men  without  imagina- 
tions, without  the  natural  gift  of  emotional  speech,  and 
without  the  faculty  of  gazing  honestly  in  her  face.  She 
does  not  work  in  that  way.  In  the  time  of  the  mammoth 
and  the  cave-bear  she  will  give  birth  to  a  great  artist 
whose  materials  may  be  a  flint  and  a  tusk.  In  the  period 
before  Greece  was  Greece,  among  a  handful  of  Achaians 
she  will  give  birth  to  the  greatest  poet,  or,  perhaps  we 
should  say,  the  greatest  group  of  poets,  the  world  has  ever 
yet  seen.  In  the  time  of  Elizabeth  she  will  give  birth, 
among  the  illiterate  yeomen  of  a  diminutive  country 
town,  to  a  dramatist  with  such  inconceivable  insight  and 
intellectual  breadth  that  his  generalizations  cover  not 
only  the  intellectual  limbs  of  his  own  time,  but  the  in- 
tellectual limbs  of  so  complex  an  epoch  as  the  twentieth 
century." 

Rossetti  had  the  theory,  I  believe,  that  important  as 
humour  is  in  prose  fiction  and  also  in  worldly  verse, 
it  cannot  be  got  into  romantic  poetry,  as  he  himself 
understood  romantic  poetry  ;  for  he  did  not  class  ballads 
like  Kinmont  Willie,  where  there  are  such  superb  touches 
of  humour,  among  the  romantic  ballads.  And,  as  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  has  somewhere  remarked,  his  poems,  like 
Morris's,  are  entirely  devoid  of  humour,  although  both 
the  poets  were  humourists.  But  the  readers  of  Rhona's 
Letters  in  '  The  Coming  of  Love  '  will  admit  that  a 
delicious  humour  can  be  imported  into  the  highest 
romantic  poetry. 

With  one  more  quotation  from  the  essay  in  Cham- 
bers's *  Cyclopaedia  of  English  Literature,'  I  must  con- 


The    Pyramid   of  Cathay  25 

elude  my  remarks  upon  the  keynote  of  all  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  work,  whether  imaginative  or  critical  : — 

"  The  period  of  wonder  in  English  poetry  may  perhaps 
be  said  to  have  ended  with  Milton.  For  Milton,  al- 
though born  only  twenty-three  years  before  the  first  of 
the  great  poets  of  acceptance,  Dryden,  belongs  properly 
to  the  period  of  romantic  poetry.  He  has  no  relation 
whatever  to  the  poetry  of  Augustanism  which  followed 
Dryden,  and  which  Dryden  received  partly  from  France 
and  partly  from  certain  contemporaries  of  the  great 
romantic  dramatists  themselves,  headed  by  Ben  Jonson. 
From  the  moment  when  Augustanism  really  began — 
in  the  latter  decades  of  the  seventeenth  century — the 
periwig  poetry  of  Dryden  and  Pope  crushed  out  all  the 
natural  singing  of  the  true  poets.  All  the  periwig  poets 
became  too '  polite  '  to  be  natural.  As  acceptance  is,  of 
course,  the  parent  of  Augustanism  or  gentility,  the  most 
genteel  character  in  the  world  is  a  Chinese  mandarin,  to 
whom  everything  is  vulgar  that  contradicts  the  symmetry 
of  the  pyramid  of  Cathay." 

One  of  the  things  I  purpose  to  show  in  this  book  is 
that  the  most  powerful  expression  of  the  Renascence  of 
Wonder  is  not  in  Rossetti's  poems,  nor  yet  in  his 
pictures,  nor  is  it  in  '  Aylwin,'  but  in  '  The  Coming  of 
Love.'  But  in  order  fully  to  understand  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  work  it  is  necessary  to  know  something  of  his 
life-history,  and  thanks  to  the  aid  I  have  received  from 
certain  of  his  friends,  and  also  to  a  little  topographical 
work,  the  '  History  of  St.  Ives,'  by  Mr.  Herbert  E. 
Norris,  F.E.S.,  I  shall  be  able  to  give  glimpses  of  his 
early  life  long  before  he  was  known  in  London. 


Chapter  II 

COWSLIP   COUNTRY 

SOME  time  ago  I  was  dipping  into  the  '  official  pic- 
torial guides  '  of  those  three  great  trunk  railways, 
the  Midland,  the  Great  Northern,  and  the  Great  Eastern, 
being  curious  to  see  what  they  had  to  say  about  St.  Ives — 
not  the  famous  town  in  Cornwall,  but  the  little  town  in 
Huntingdonshire  where,  according  to  Carlyle,  Oliver 
Cromwell  spent  those  five  years  of  meditation  upon  which 
his  after  life  was  nourished.  In  the  Great  Northern 
Guide  I  stumbled  upon  these  words  :  '  At  Slepe  Hall 
dwelt  the  future  Lord  Protector,  Oliver  Cromwell,  but 
by  many  this  little  Huntingdonshire  town  will  be  even 
better  known  as  the  birthplace  of  Mr.  Theodore  Watts- 
Dunton,  whose  exquisite  examples  of  the  English  sonnet 
and  judicious  criticisms  in  the  kindred  realms  of  poetry 
and  art  are  familiar  to  lovers  of  our  national  literature.' 
*  Well,'  I  thought,  when  I  found  similar  remarks  in  the 
other  two  guides,  '  here  at  least  is  one  case  in  which  a 
prophet  has  honour  in  his  own  country.'  This  set  me 
musing  over  a  subject  which  had  often  tantalized  me 
during  my  early  Irish  days,  the  whimsical  workings  of  the 
Spirit  of  Place.  To  a  poet,  what  are  the  advantages  and 
what  are  the  disadvantages  of  being  born  in  a  microcosm 
like  St.  Ives  ?  If  the  fame  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  as  a 
poet  were  as  great  as  that  of  his  living  friend,  Mr.  Swin- 
burne, or  as  that  of  his  dead  friend,  Rossetti,  I  should 
not  have  been  surprised  to  find  the  place  of  his  birth  thus 


The  Spirit   of  Place  27 

associated  with  his  name.  But  whether  or  not  Rossetti 
was  right  in  saying  that  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  *  had  sought 
obscurity  as  other  poets  seek  fame,'  it  is  certain  that 
until  quite  lately  he  neglected  to  claim  his  proper  place 
among  his  peers.  Doubtless,  as  the  '  Journal  des  De- 
bats  '  has  pointed  out,  the  very  originality  of  his  work, 
both  in  subject  and  in  style, has  retarded  the  popular 
recognition  of  its  unique  quality  ;  but  although  the  names 
of  Rossetti  and  Swinburne  echo  through  the  world,  there 
is  one  respect  in  which  they  were  less  lucky  than  their 
friend.  They  were  born  in  the  macrocosm  of  London, 
where  the  Spirit  of  Place  has  so  much  to  attend  to  that 
his  memory  can  find  but  a  small  corner  even  for  the 
author  of  '  The  Blessed  Damozel,'  or  for  the  author  of 
'  Atalanta  in  Calydon.' 

Mr.  Watts-Dunton  was  born  in  the  microcosm  which 
was  in  those  corn  law  repeal  days  a  little  metropolis  in 
Cowslip  Country — Buttercup  Land,  as  the  Ouse  lanes 
are  sometimes  called,  and  therefore  he  was  born  to 
good  luck.  Cowslip  Country  will  be  as  closely  associated 
with  him  and  with  Rhona  Boswell  as  Wessex  is  associated 
with  Thomas  Hardy  and  with  Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles. 
For  the  poet  born  in  a  microcosm  becomes  identified  with 
it  in  the  public  eye,  whereas  the  poet  born  in  a  macro- 
cosm is  seldom  associated  with  his  birthplace. 

To  the  novelist,  if  not  to  the  poet,  there  is  a  still  greater 
advantage  in  being  born  in  a  microcosm.  He  sees  the 
drama  of  life  from  a  point  of  view  entirely  different  from 
that  of  the  novelist  born  in  the  macrocosm.  The  human 
microbe,  or,  as  Mr.  John  Morley  might  prefer  to  say,  the 
human  cheese-mite  in  the  macrocosm  sees  every  other 
microbe  or  every  other  cheese-mite  on  the  flat,  but  in 
the  microcosm  he  sees  every  other  microbe  or  every 
other  cheese-mite  in  the  round. 


28  Cowslip  Country 

Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  work  is  saturated  with  memories 
of  the  Ouse.  Cowper  had  already  described  the  Ouse, 
but  it  was  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  who  first  flung  the  rain- 
bow of  romance  over  the  river  and  over  the  sweet 
meadows  of  Cowslip  Land,  through  which  it  flows.  In 
these  lines  he  has  described  a  sunset  on  the  Ouse  : — 

More  mellow  falls  the  light  and  still  more  mellow 

Around  the  boat,  as  we  two  glide  along 

'Tween  grassy  banks  she  loves  where,  tall  and  strong, 

The  buttercups  stand  gleaming,  smiling,  yellow. 

She  knows  the  nightingales  of  '  Portobello  ' ; 

Love  makes  her  know  each  bird !     In  all  that  throng 

No  voice  seems  like  another :    soul  is  song, 

And  never  nightingale  was  like  its  fellow  ; 

For,  whether  born  in  breast  of  Love's  own  bird. 

Singing  its  passion  in  those  islet  bowers 

Whose  sunset-coloured  maze  of  leaves  and  flowers 

The  rosy  river's  glowing  arms  engird. 

Or  born  in  human  souls — twin  souls  like  ours — 

Song  leaps  from  deeps  unplumbed  by  spoken  word. 

Now,  will  it  be  believed  that  this  lovely  river — so 
famous  too  among  English  anglers  for  its  roach,  perch, 
pike,  dace,  chub,  and  gudgeon — has  been  libelled  ?  Yes, 
it  has  been  libelled,  and  libelled  by  no  less  a  person  than 
Thomas  Carlyle.  Mr.  Norris,  vindicating  with  righteous 
wrath  the  reputation  of  his  beloved  Ouse,  says  : — 

"  There  is,  as  far  as  I  know,  nothing  like  the  Ouse 
elsewhere  in  England.  I  do  not  mean  that  our  river 
surpasses  or  even  equals  in  picturesqueness  such  rivers  as 
the  Wye,  the  Severn,  the  Thames,  but  that  its  beauty  is 
unique.  There  is  not  to  be  seen  anywhere  else  so  wide 
and  stately  a  stream  moving  so  slowly  and  yet  so  clearly. 
Consequently  there  is  no  other  river  which  reflects  with 


Carlyle   libels   the   Ouse  29 

such  beauty  the  scenery  of  the  clouds  floating  overhead. 
This,  I  think,  is  owing  to  the  stream  moving  over  a  bottom 
which  is  both  flat  and  gravelly.  When  Carlyle  spoke 
of  the  Ouse  dragging  in  a  half-stagnant  way  under  a  coat- 
ing of  floating  oils,  he  showed  '  how  vivid  were  his  per- 
ceptive faculties  and  also  how  untrustworthy.'  I  have 
made  a  good  deal  of  enquiry  into  the  matter  of  Carlyle's 
visit  to  St.  Ives,  and  have  learnt  that,  having  spent  some 
time  exploring  Ely  Cathedral  in  search  of  mementoes  of 
Cromwell,  he  rode  on  to  St.  Ives,  and  spent  about  an 
hour  there  before  proceeding  on  his  journey.  Among 
the  objects  at  which  he  gave  a  hasty  glance  was  the  river, 
covered  from  the  bridge  to  the  Holmes  by  one  of  those 
enormous  fleets  of  barges  which  were  frequently  to  be 
seen  at  that  time,  and  it  was  from  the  newly  tarred  keels 
of  this  fleet  of  barges  that  came  the  oily  exudation  which 
Carlyle,  in  his  ignorance  of  the  physical  sciences  and  his 
contempt  for  them,  believed  to  arise  from  a  greasy  river- 
bottom.  And  to  this  mistake  the  world  is  indebted  for 
this  description  of  the  Ouse,  which  has  been  slavishly 
followed  by  all  subsequent  writers  on  Cromwell.  This 
is  what  makes  strangers,  walking  along  the  tow-path  of 
Hemingford  meadow,  express  so  much  surprise  when, 
instead  of  seeing  the  oily  scum  they  expected,  they  see  a 
broad  mirror  as  clear  as  glass,  whose  iridescence  is  caused 
by  the  reflection  of  the  clouds  overhead  and  by  the  gold 
and  white  water  lilies  on  the  surface  of  the  stream." 

If  the  beauty  of  the  Ouse  inspired  Mr.  Norris  to  praise 
it  so  eloquently  in  prose,  we  need  not  wonder  at  the 
pictorial  fascination  of  what  Rossetti  styled  in  a  letter  to 
a  friend  '  Watts's  magnificent  star  sonnet ' : — 

The  mirrored  stars  lit  all  the  bulrush  spears, 
And  all  the  flags  and  broad-leaved  lily-isles ; 


30  Cowslip  Country 

The  ripples  shook  the  stars  to  golden  smiles, 

Then  smoothed  them  back  to  happy  golden  spheres. 

We  rowed — we  sang ;    her  voice  seemed  in  mine  ears 

An  angel's,  yet  with  woman's  dearer  wiles ; 

But  shadows  fell  from  gathering  cloudy  piles 

And  ripples  shook  the  stars  to  fiery  tears. 

What  shaped  those  shadows  like  another  boat 
Where  Rhona  sat  and  he  Love  made  a  har  ? 
There,  where  the  Scollard  sank,  I  saw  it  float, 
While  ripples  shook  the  stars  to  symbols  dire ; 
We  wept — we  kissed — while  starry  fingers  wrote. 
And  ripples  shook  the  stars  to  a  snake  of  fire. 

According  to  Mr.  Sharp,  Rossetti  pronounced  this 
sonnet  to  be  the  finest  of  all  the  versions  of  the 
Doppelganger  idea,  and  for  many  years  he  seriously 
purposed  to  render  it  in  art.  It  is  easy  to  understand 
why  Rossetti  never  carried  out  his  intention,  for  the 
pictorial  magic  of  the  sonnet  is  so  powerful  that  even 
the  greatest  of  all  romantic  painters  could  hardly  have 
rendered  it  on  canvas.  Poetry  can  suggest  to  the  im- 
agination deeper  mysteries  than  the  subtlest  romantic 
painting. 

No  sonnet  has  been  more  frequently  localized — erron- 
eously localized  than  this.  It  is  often  supposed  to  depict 
the  Thames  above  Kew,  but  Mr.  Norris  says  that  '  every 
one  familiar  with  Hemingford  Meadow  will  see  that  it 
describes  the  Ouse  backwater  near  Porto  Bello,  where  the 
author  as  a  young  man  was  constantly  seen  on  summer 
evenings  listening  from  a  canoe  to  the  blackcaps  and 
nightingales  of  the  Thicket.' 

That  excellent  critic,  Mr.  Earl  Hodgson,  the  editor 
of  Dr.  Gordon  Hake's  '  New  Day,'  seems  to  think  that 
the  '  lily-isles  '  are  on  the  Thames  at  Kelmscott,  while 
other  writers  have  frequently  localized  these  '  lily-isles  ' 


The  Ouse  and  the   Avon  31 

on  the  Avon  at  Stratford.     But,  no  doubt,  Mr.  Norris 
is  right  in  placing  them  on  the  Ouse. 

This,  however,  gives  me  a  good  opportunity  of  saying 
a  few  words  about  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  love  of  the 
Avon.  The  sacred  old  town  of  Stratford-on-Avon  has 
always  been  a  favourite  haunt  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's. 
No  poet  of  our  time  has  shown  a  greater  love  of  our 
English  rivers,  but  he  seems  to  love  the  Avon  even  more 
passionately  than  the  Ouse.  He  cannot  describe  the  soft 
sands  of  Petit  Bot  Bay  in  Guernsey  without  bringing  in 
an  allusion  to  *  Avon's  sacred  silt.'  It  was  at  Stratford- 
on-Avon  that  he  wrote  several  of  his  poems,  notably  the 
two  sonnets  which  appeared  first  in  the  *  Athenaeum,' 
and  afterwards  in  the  little  volume,  *  Jubilee  Greetings 
at  Spithead  to  the  Men  of  Greater  Britain.'  They  are 
entitled  '  The  Breath  of  Avon :  To  English-speaking 
Pilgrims  on  Shakspeare's  Birthday  '  : — 


Whate'er  of  woe  the  Dark  may  hide  in  womb 
For  England,  mother  of  kings  of  battle  and  song- 
Rapine,  or  racial  hate's  mysterious  wrong, 
Blizzard  of  Chance,  or  fiery  dart  of  Doom — 
Let  breath  of  Avon,  rich  of  meadow-bloom, 
Bind  her  to  that  great  daughter  sever'd  long — 
To  near  and  far-off  children  young  and  strong — 
With  fetters  woven  of  Avon's  flower  perfume. 
Welcome,  ye  EngUsh-speaking  pilgrims,  ye 
Whose  hands  around  the  world  are  join'd  by  him, 
Who  make  his  speech  the  language  of  the  sea, 
TiU  winds  of  Ocean  waft  from  rim  to  rim 
The  Breath  of  Avon  :    let  this  great  day  be 
A  Feast  of  Race  no  power  shall  ever  dim. 

From  where  the  steeds  of  Earth's  twin  oceans  toss 
Their  manes  along  Columbia's  chariot-way ; 
From  where  Australia's  long  blue  billows  play; 


32  Cowslip  Country 

From  where  the  morn,  quenching  the  Southern  Cross, 

Startling  the  frigate-bird  and  albatross 

Asleep  in  air,  breaks  over  Table  Bay — 

Come  hither,  pilgrims,  where  these  rushes  sway 

'Tween  grassy  banks  of  Avon  soft  as  moss ! 

For,  if  ye  found  the  breath  of  Ocean  sweet, 

Sweeter  is  Avon's  earthy,  flowery  smell, 

Distill'd  from  roots  that  feel  the  coming  spell 

Of  May,  who  bids  all  flowers  that  lov'd  him  meet 

In  meadows  that,  remembering  Shakspeare's  feet. 

Hold  still  a  dream  of  music  where  they  fell. 

It  was  during  a  visit  to  Stratford-on-Avon  in  1880 
that  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  wrote  the  cantata,  *  Christmas  at 
the  Mermaid,'  a  poem  in  which  breathes  the  very  atmo- 
sphere of  Shakespeare's  town.  There  are  no  poetical 
descriptions  of  the  Avon  that  can  stand  for  a  moment 
beside  the  descriptions  in  this  poem,  which  I  shall  discuss 
later. 

A  typical  meadow  of  Cowslip  Country,  or,  as  it  is 
sometimes  called,  '  The  Green  Country,'  is  Heming- 
ford  Meadow,  adjoining  St.  Ives.  It  is  a  level  tract  of 
land  on  the  banks  of  the  Ouse,  consisting  of  deposits 
of  alluvium  from  the  overflowings  of  the  river.  In  sum- 
mer it  is  clothed  with  gay  flowers,  and  in  winter,  during 
floods  and  frosts,  it  is  used  as  a  skating-ground,  for 
St.  Ives,  being  on  the  border  of  the  Fens,  is  a  famous 
skating  centre.  On  the  opposite  side  of  the  meadow  is 
The  Thicket,  of  which  I  am  able  to  give  a  lovely  picture. 
This,  no  doubt,  is  the  scene  described  in  one  of  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  birthday  addresses  to  Tennyson  : — 

Another  birthday  breaks :    he  is  with  us  still. 
There  through  the  branches  of  the  glittering  trees 
The  birthday  sun  gilds  grass  and  flower  :    the  breeze 
Sends  forth  methinks  a  thrill — a  conscious  thrill 


Rhona's    Haymaking    Song  33 

That  tells  yon  meadows  by  the  steaming  rill — 
Where,  o'er  the  clover  waiting  for  the  bees, 
The  mist  shines  round  the  cattle  to  their  knees — 
'  Another  birthday  breaks  :    he  is  with  us  still !  ' 

The  meadow  leads  to  what  the  '  oldest  rustic  inhabitant ' 
calls  the '  First  Hemingford,'  or  *  Hemingford  Grey.'  The 
imagination  of  this  same  '  oldest  inhabitant '  used  to 
go  even  beyond  the  First  Hemingford  to  the  Second 
Hemingford,  and  then  of  course  came  Ultima  Thule  ! 
The  meadow  has  quite  a  wide  fame  among  those  students 
of  nature  who  love  English  grasses  in  their  endless 
varieties.  Owing  to  the  richness  of  the  soil,  the  lux- 
uriant growth  of  these  beautiful  grasses  is  said  to  be 
unparalleled  in  England.  For  years  the  two  Heming- 
fords  have  been  the  favourite  haunt  of  a  group  of  land- 
scape painters  the  chief  of  whom  are  the  brothers  Eraser, 
two  of  whose  water-colours  are  reproduced  in  this  book. 

Nowhere  can  the  bustling  activity  of  haymaking  be 
seen  to  more  advantage  than  in  Cowslip  Country, 
which  extends  right  through  Huntingdonshire  into  East 
Anglia.  It  was  not,  however,  near  St.  Ives,  but  in 
another  somewhat  distant  part  of  Cowslip  Country 
that  the  gypsies  depicted  in  '  The  Coming  of  Love  ' 
took  an  active  part  in  haymaking.  But  alas !  in  these 
times  of  mechanical  haymaking  the  lover  of  local  customs 
can  no  longer  hope  to  see  such  a  picture  as  that  painted 
in  the  now  famous  gypsy  haymaking  song  which  Mr.Watts- 
Dunton  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Rhona  Boswell.  More- 
over, the  prosperous  gryengroes  depicted  by  Borrow  and 
by  the  author  of  '  The  Coming  of  Love  '  have  now 
entirely  vanished  from  the  scene.  The  present  genera- 
tion knows  them  not.  But  it  is  impossible  for  the  student 
of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  poetry  to  ramble  along  any  part 

w.-D.  3 


34 


Cowslip  Country 


of  Cowslip  Country,  with  the  fragrance  of  newly-made 
hay  in  his  nostrils,  without  recalling  this  chant,  which 
I  have  the  kind  permission  of  the  editor  of  the  *  Satur- 
day Review '  (April   19,  1902)  to  quote  : — 


hay  sun 

gypsy  girls 

song 
summer 

farmers 

Gentile  woman 
hay 

gypsy  girls 
hay 

grass 
hares  field 


homes 
hay  sun 

hay   wind 
Gentiles 


birds 
summer 

hay   sun 


Make  the  kas  while  the  kem  says,  '  Make  it  ! ' 
Shinin'  there  on  meadow  an'  grove, 
Sayin,  '  You  Romany  chies,  you  take  it, 
Toss  it,  tumble  it,  cock  it,  rake  it, 
Singin'  the  ghyllie  the  while  you  shake  it 
To  lennor  and  love !  ' 

Hark,  the  sharpenin'  scythes  that  tingle  ! 

See  they  come,  the  farmin'  ryes ! 

'  Leave  the  dell,'  they  say,  '  an'  pingle  ! 

Never  a  gorgie,  married  or  single. 

Can  toss  the  kas  in  dell  or  dingle 

Like  Romany  chies.' 

Make  the  kas  while  the  kem  says  '  Make  it ! ' 

Bees  are  a-buzzin'  in  chaw  an'  clover 

Stealin'  the  honey  from  sperrits  o'  morn, 

Shoshus  leap  in  puv  an'  cover. 

Doves  are  a-cooin'  like  lover  to  lover, 

Larks  are  awake  an'  a-warblin'  over 

Their  kairs  in  the  corn. 

Make  the  kas  while  the  kem  says  '  Make  it !  ' 

Smell  the  kas  on  the  baval  blowin' ! 

What  is  that  the  gorgies  say  ? 

Never  a  garden  rose  a-glowin', 

Never  a  meadow  flower  a-growin'. 

Can  match  the  smell  from  a  Rington  mowin' 

Of  new  made  hay. 

All  along  the  river  reaches 

'  Cheep,  cheep,  chee  ! ' — from  osier  an'  sedge  ; 

'  Cuckoo,  cuckoo ! '  rings  from  the  beeches ; 

Every  chirikel's  song  beseeches 

Ryes  to  larn  what  lennor  teaches 

From  copse  an'  hedge. 

Make  the  kas  while  the  kem  says  '  Make  It  1  ' 


Slepe   Hall  35 

Lennor  sets  'em  singin'  an'  pairin',  summer 

Chirikels  all  in  tree  an'  grass,  birds 

Farmers  say,  '  Them  gals  are  darin',  girls 

Sometimes  dukkerin',  sometimes  snarin'  ;  fortune-telling 

But  see  their  forks  at  a  quick  kas-kairin','  haymaking 

'i      Toss  the  kas !  hay 

Make  the  kas  while  the  kem  says,  '  Make  it !  '  hay   sun 
Shinin'  there  on  meadow  an'  grove, 

Sayin',  '  You  Romany  chies,  you  take  it,  gypsy  girls 

Toss  it,  tumble  it,  cock  it,  rake  it,  _        „    i 

Singin'  the  ghyllie  the  while  you  shake  it         ~  song 

To  lennor  and  love  ! '  summer 

Mr.  Norris  tells  us  that  the  old  Saxon  name  of  St.  Ives 
was  Slepe,  and  that  Oliver  Cromwell  is  said  to  have  re- 
sided as  a  farmer  for  five  years  in  Slepe  Hall,  which 
was  pulled  down  in  the  late  forties.  When  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  friend,  Madox  Brown,  went  down  to  St.  Ives 
to  paint  the  scenery  for  his  famous  picture,  *  Oliver 
Cromwell  at  St.  Ives,'  he  could  present  only  an  imag- 
inary farm. 

Perhaps  my  theory  about  the  advantage  of  a  story- 
teller being  born  in  a  microcosm  accounts  for  that  faculty 
of  improvizing  stories  full  of  local  colour  and  char- 
acter which,  according  to  friends  of  D.  G.  Rossetti, 
would  keep  the  poet-painter  up  half  the  night,  and  which 
was  dwelt  upon  by  Mr.  Hake  in  his  account  of  the 
origin  of  '  Aylwin  '  which  I  have  already  given.  I  may 
give  here  an  anecdote  connected  with  Slepe  Hall  which 
I  have  heard  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  tell,  and  which  would 
certainly  make  a  good  nucleus  for  a  short  story.  It  is 
connected  with  Slepe  Hall,  of  which  Mr.  Clement 
Shorter,  in  some  reminiscences  of  his  published  some 
time  ago,  writes :  "  My  mother  was  born  at  St.  Ives,  in 
Huntingdonshire,   and  still  owns   by  inheritance   some 


36  Cowslip  Country 

freehold  cottages  built  on  land  once  occupied  by  Slepe 
Hall,  where  Oliver  Cromwell  is  supposed  to  have  farmed. 
At  Slepe  Hall,  a  picturesque  building,  she  went  to  school 
in  girlhood.  She  remembers  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  the 
author  of  '  Aylwin,'  who  was  also  born  at  St.  Ives,  as 
a  pretty  little  boy  then  unknown  to  fame." 

When  the  owners  of  Slepe  Hall,  the  White  family, 
pulled  it  down,  they  sold  the  materials  of  the  building 
and  also  the  site  and  grounds  in  building  lots.  It  was 
then  discovered  that  the  house  in  which  Cromwell  was 
said  to  have  lived  was  built  upon  the  foundations  of  a 
much  older  house  whose  cellars  remained  intact.  This 
was,  of  course,  a  tremendous  event  in  the  microcosm,  and 
the  place  became  a  rendezvous  of  the  schoolboys  of  the 
neighbourhood,  whose  delight  from  morning  to  eve  was 
to  watch  the  workmen  in  their  task  of  demolition.  In 
the  early  stages  of  this  work,  when  the  upper  stories  were 
being  demolished,  curiosity  was  centred  on  the  great 
question  as  to  what  secret  chamber  would  be  found, 
whence  Oliver  Cromwell's  ghost,  before  he  was  driven 
into  hiding  by  his  terror  of  the  school  girls,  used  to 
issue,  to  take  his  moonlit  walks  about  the  grounds, 
and  fish  for  roach  in  the  old  fish  ponds.  But  no 
such  secret  chamber  could  be  found.  When  at  length 
the  work  had  proceeded  so  far  as  the  foundations,  the 
centre  of  curiosity  was  shifted  :  a  treasure  was  supposed 
to  be  hidden  there  ;  for,  although,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
Cromwell  was  born  at  Huntingdon  and  lived  at  St.  Ives 
only  five  years,  it  was  not  at  Huntingdon,  but  at  the  little 
Nonconformist  town  of  St.  Ives,  that  he  was  the  idol  :  it 
was  indeed  the  old  story  of  every  hero  of  the  world — 

Imposteur  a  la  Mecque  et  prophete  a  Medine. 

Although    in   all   probability   Cromwell    never   lived 


Slei'e  Hall  ;  Cromwell's  supposed  Residence  at  St.  Jves 

(From   ail   Oil    Painting) 

PbrAO.  P'y,!,-,  Putney 


Oliver    Cromwell's    Elder    Wine  37 

at  Slepe  Hall,  [but  at  the  Green  End  Farm  at  the 
other  end  of  the  town,  there  was  a  legend  that,  be- 
fore the  Ironsides  started  on  a  famous  expedition,  Noll 
went  back  to  St.  Ives  and  concealed  his  own  plate, 
and  the  plate  of  all  his  rebel  friends,  in  Slepe  Hall 
cellars.  No  treasure  turned  up,  but  what  was  found 
was  a  collection  of  old  bottles  of  wine  which  was 
at  once  christened  *  Cromwell's  wine '  by  the  local 
humourist  of  the  town,  who  was  also  one  of  its  most 
prosperous  inhabitants,  and  who  felt  as  much  interest 
as  the  boys  in  the  exploration.  The  workmen,  of 
course,  at  once  began  knocking  off  the  bottles'  necks  and 
drinking  the  wine,  and  were  soon  in  what  may  be 
called  a  mellow  condition ;  the  humourist,  being  a 
teetotaler,  would  not  drink,  but  he  insisted  on  the 
boys  being  allowed  to  take  away  their  share  of  it 
in  order  that  they  might  say  in  after  days  that  they  had 
drunk  Oliver  Cromwell's  wine  and  perhaps  imbibed 
some  of  the  Cromwellian  spirit  and  pluck.  Conse- 
quently the  young  urchins  carried  off  a  few  bottles  and 
sat  down  in  a  ring  under  a  tree  called  '  Oliver's  Tree,' 
and  knocked  off  the  tops  of  the  bottles  and  began  to 
drink.  The  wine  turned  out  to  be  extremely  sweet, 
thick  and  sticky,  and  appears  to  have  been  a  wine  for 
which  Cowslip  Land  has  always  been  famous — elder 
wine.  Abstemious  by  temperament  and  by  rearing  as 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  was,  he  could  not  resist  the  tempt- 
ation to  drink  freely  of  Cromwell's  elder-wine  ;  so  freely, 
in  fact,  that  he  has  said,  '  I  was  never  even  excited  by 
drink  except  once,  and  that  was  when  I  came  near  to 
being  drunk  on  Oliver  Cromwell's  elder-wine.'  The 
wine  was  probably  about  a  century  old. 

I  should  have  stated  that  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  at  the 
age  of  eleven   or   twelve  was   sent  to  a   school  at  Cam- 


38  Cowslip  Country 

bridge,  where  he  remained  for  a  longer  time  than  is 
usual.  He  received  there  and  afterwards  at  home  a 
somewhat  elaborate  education,  comprising  the  physical 
sciences,  particularly  biology,  and  also  art  and  music. 
As  has  been  said  in  the  notice  of  him  in  '  Poets  and 
Poetry  of  the  Century,'  he  is  one  of  the  few  contem- 
porary poets  with  a  scientific  knowledge  of  music. 
Owing  to  his  father's  passion  for  science,  he  was  specially 
educated  as  a  naturalist,  and  this  accounts  for  the 
innumerable  allusions  to  natural  science  in  his  writings, 
and  for  his  many  expressions  of  a  passionate  interest  in 
the  lower  animals. 

Upon  the  subject  of  "  the  great  human  fallacy  ex- 
pressed in  the  phrase,  '  the  dumb  animals,'  "  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  has  written  much,  and  he  has  often  been 
eloquent  about  '  those  who  have  seen  through  the 
fallacy,  such  as  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  Cowper,  Burns, 
Coleridge,  and  Bisset,  the  wonderful  animal-trainer 
of  Perth  of  the  last  century,  who,  if  we  are  to  believe 
the  accounts  of  him,  taught  a  turtle  in  six  months  to 
fetch  and  carry  like  a  dog  ;  and  having  chalked  the  floor 
and  blackened  its  claws,  could  direct  it  to  trace  out  any 
given   name  in  the  company.' 

"  Of  course,"  he  says,  "  the  '  lower  animals  '  arc  no  more 
dumb  than  we  are.  With  them,  as  with  us,  there  is  the 
same  yearning  to  escape  from  isolation — to  get  as  close  as 
may  be  to  some  other  conscious  thing — which  is  a  great 
factor  of  progress.  With  them,  as  with  us,  each  individual 
tries  to  warm  itself  by  communication  with  the  others 
around  it  by  arbitrary  signs  ;  with  them,  as  with  us,  count- 
less accidents  through  countless  years  have  contributed 
to  determine  what  these  signs  and  sounds  shall  be. 
Those  among  us  who  have  gone  at  all  underneath  con- 


The    Dumb    Animals  39 

ventional  thought  and  conventional  expression — those 
who  have  penetrated  underneath  conventional  feeling — 
know  that  neither  thought  nor  emotion  can  really  be 
expressed  at  all.  The  voice  cannot  do  it,  as  we  see  by- 
comparing  one  language  with  another.  Wordsworth 
calls  language  the  incarnation  of  thought.  But  the  mere 
fact  of  there  being  such  a  Babel  of  different  tongues 
disproves  this.  If  there  were  but  one  universal  lan- 
guage, such  as  speculators  dream  of,  the  idea  might,  at 
least,  be  not  superficially  absurd.  Soul  cannot  com- 
municate with  soul  save  by  signs  made  by  the  body  ; 
and  when  you  can  once  establish  a  Lingua  Franca  be- 
tween yourself  and  a  '  lower  animal,'  interchange  of 
feeling  and  even  of  thought  is  as  easy  with  them  as  it  is 
with  men.  Nay,  with  some  temperaments  and  in  some 
moods,  the  communication  is  far,  far  closer.  '  When 
I  am  assailed  with  heavy  tribulation,'  said  Luther,  '  I 
rush  out  among  my  pigs  rather  than  remain  alone  by 
myself.'  And  there  is  no  creature  that  does  not  at  some 
points  sympathize  with  man.  People  have  laughed  at 
Erskine  because  every  evening  after  dinner  he  used  to 
have  placed  upon  the  table  a  vessel  full  of  his  pet  leeches, 
upon  which  he  used  to  lavish  his  endearments.  Neither  I 
nor  my  companion  had  a  pet  passion  for  leeches.  Erskine 
probably  knew  leeches  better  than  we,  for,  as  the  Arabian 
proverb  says,  mankind  hate  only  the  thing  of  which  they 
know  nothing.  Like  most  dog  lovers,  we  had  no  special 
love  for  cats,  but  that  was  clearly  from  lack  of  knowledge. 
'  I  wish  women  would  purr  when  they  are  pleased,' 
said  Home  Tooke  to  Rogers  once." 


Chapter  III 

THE   CRITIC   IN   THE   BUD 

ONE  of  my  special  weaknesses  is  my  delight  in  for- 
gotten records  of  the  nooks  of  old  England  and 
*  ould  Ireland '  ;  I  have  a  propensity  for  '  dawdling  and 
dandering  '  among  them  whenever  the  occasion  arises, 
and   I   am  yielding  to  it  here. 

Besides  the  interesting  history  of  St.  Ives  from 
which  I  have  been  compelled  to  quote  so  liberally 
Mr.  Norris  has  written  a  series  of  brochures  upon  the 
surrounding  villages.  One  of  these,  called  '  St.  Ives 
and  the  Printing  Press,'  has  greatly  interested  me,  for 
it  reveals  the  wealth  of  the  material  for  topographical 
literature  which  in  the  rural  districts  lies  ready  for  the 
picking  up.  I  am  tempted  to  quote  from  this,  for  it 
shows  how  strong  since  Cromwell's  time  the  temper 
which  produced  Cromwell  has  remained.  During  the 
time  when  at  Cambridge  George  Dyer  and  his  associates, 
William  Frend,  Fellow  of  Jesus,  and  John  Hammond 
of  Fenstanton,  Fellow  of  Queen's,  revolted  against 
the  discipline  and  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  of 
England,  St.  Ives  was  the  very  place  where  the  Cam- 
bridge revolutionists  had  their  books  printed.  The 
house  whence  issued  these  fulminations  was  the  '  Old 
House  '  in  Crown  Street,  now  pulled  down,  which  for 
a  time  belonged  to  Mr.  Watts-Dun  ton's  father,  having 
remained  during  all   this   time  a  printing  office.     Mr. 


George    Dyer    and    St.    Ives  41 

Norris  gives  a  very  picturesque  description  of  this  old 
printing  office  at  the  top  of  the  house,  with  its  pointed 
roof,  '  king  posts '  and  paneUing,  reminding  one  of  the 
pictures  of  the  ancient  German  printing  offices.  Mr. 
Norris  also  tells  us  that  it  was  at  the  house  adjoining  this, 
the  '  Crown  Inn,'  that  William  Penn  died  in  17 18,  having 
ridden  thither  from  Huntingdon  to  hear  the  lawsuit 
between' himself  and  the  St.  Ives  churchwardens.  Accord- 
ing to  Mr.  Norris,  the  fountain-head  of  the  Cambridge 
revolt  was  the  John  Hammond  above  alluded  to,  who  was 
a  friend  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  father  when  the  latter 
was  quite  a  young  man  under  articles  for  a  solicitor.  A 
curious  character  must  have  been  this  long-forgotten 
rebel,  to  whom  Dyer  addressed  an  ode,  with  an  enor- 
mous tail  of  learned  notes  showing  the  eccentric  pedantry 
which  was  such  an  infinite  source  of  amusement  to 
Lamb,  and  inspired  some  of  Elia's  most  delightful  touches 
of  humour.     This  poem  of  Dyer's  opens  thus  : — 


Though  much  I  love  th'  iEolian  lyre, 

Whose  varying  sounds  beguil'd  my  youthful  day, 

And  still,  as  fancy  guides,  I  love  to  stray 
In  fabled  groves,  among  th'  Aonian  choir  : 
Yet  more  on  native  fields,  thro'  milder  skies, 

Nature's  mysterious  harmonies  delight : 
There  rests  my  heart ;    for  let  the  sun  but  rise, 

What    is    the    moon's    pale    orb  that    cheer'd   the 
lonesome  night  ? 
I  cannot  leave  thee,  classic  ground. 

Nor  bid  your  labyrinths  of  song  adieu  ; 

Yet  scenes  to  me  more  dear  arise  to  view  : 
And  my  ear  drinks  in  notes  of  clearer  sound. 
No  purple  Venus  round  my  Hammond's  bovv'r, 

No  blue-ey'd  graces,  wanton  mirth  diffuse. 
The  king  of  gods  here  rains  no  golden  show'r, 

Nor  have  these  lips  e'er  sipt  Castilian  dews. 


42  The    Critic    in    the    Bud 

At  the  *  Old  House '  in  Crown  Street  there  used 
to  be  held  in  Dyer's  time,  if  not  earlier,  the  meetings  of 
the  St.  Ives  old  Union  Book  Club,  and  at  this  very- 
Book  Club,  Walter  Theodore  Watts  first  delivered 
himself  of  his  boyish  ideas  about  science,  literature, 
and  things  in  general.  Filled  with  juvenile  emphasis  as 
it  is,  I  mean  to  give  here  nearly  in  full  that  boyish 
utterance.  It  interests  me  much,  because  I  seem  to 
to  see  in  it  adumbrations  of  many  interesting  extracts 
from  his  works  with  which  I  hope  to  enrich  these  pages. 
I  cannot  let  slip  the  opportunity  of  taking  advantage  of 
a  lucky  accident — the  accident  that  a  member  of  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton's  family  was  able  to  furnish  me  with  an 
old  yellow-brown  newspaper  cutting  in  which  the  speech 
is  reported.  In  1854,  '  ^-  Theodore  Watts,'  as  he  is 
described  in  the  cutting,  although  too  young  to  be  him- 
self a  member — if  he  was  not  still  at  school  at  Cam- 
bridge, he  had  just  left  it — on  account  of  his  father's 
great  local  reputation  as  a  man  of  learning,  was  invited 
to  the  dinner,  and  called  upon  to  respond  to  the  toast, 
*  Science.'  In  the  '  Cambridge  Chronicle '  of  that  date 
the  proceedings  of  the  dinner  were  reported,  and  great 
prominence  was  given  to  the  speech  of  the  precocious  boy, 
a  speech  delivered,  as  is  evident  by  the  allusions  to 
persons  present,  without  a  single  note,  and  largely  im- 
provized.  The  subject  which  he  discussed  was  '  The 
Influence  of  Science  upon  Modern  Civilization  '  : — 

"  It  is  one  of  the  many  beautiful  remarks  of  the  great 
philosophical  lawyer.  Lord  Bacon,  that  knowledge  re- 
sembles a  tree,  which  runs  straight  for  some  time,  and 
then  parts  itself  into  branches.  Now,  of  all  the  bran- 
ches of  the  tree  of  knowledge,  in  my  opinion,  the  most 
hopeful  one  for  humanity  is  physical  science — that  branch 


The    Philosophy    of  a    Boy  43 

of  the  tree  which,  before  the  time  of  the  great  lawyer, 
had  scarcely  begun  to  bud,  and  which  he,  above  all  men, 
helped  to  bring  to  its  present  wondrous  state  of  devel- 
opment. I  am  aware  that  the  assertion  that  Lord  Bacon 
is  the  Father  of  Physical  Science  will  be  considered  by 
many  of  you  as  rather  heterodox,  and  fitting  to  come 
from  a  person  young  and  inexperienced  as  myself.  It 
is  heterodox  ;  it  clashes,  for  instance,  with  the  venerable 
superstition  of  '  the  wisdom  of  the  ancients ' — a  super- 
stition, by  the  bye,  as  old  in  our  literature  as  my  friend 
Mr.  Wright's  old  friend  Chaucer,  whom  we  have  this 
moment  been  talking  about,  and  who,  I  remember,  has 
this  sarcastic  verse  to  the  point  : — 

For  out  of  the  olde  fieldes,  as  men  saith, 
Cometh  all  this  new  corn  from  yeare  to  yeare. 
And  out  of  olde  bookes ;   in  good  faith, 
Cometh  all  this  new  science  that  men  lere. 

But,  gentlemen,  if  by  the  wisdom  of  the  ancients 
we  mean  their  wisdom  in  matters  of  Physical  Science  (as 
some  do),  I  contend  that  we  simply  abuse  terms  ;  and 
that  the  phrase,  whether  applied  to  the  ancients  more 
properly,  or  to  our  own  English  ancestors,  is  a  fallacy. 
It  is  the  error  of  applying  qualities  to  communities  of 
men  which  belong  only  to  individuals.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that,  of  contemporary  individuals,  the  oldest 
of  them  has  had  the  greatest  experience,  and  is  therefore, 
or  ought  therefore,  to  be  the  wisest ;  but  with  gener- 
ations of  men,  surely  the  reverse  of  this  must  be  the  fact. 
As  Sydney  Smith  says  in  his  own  inimitably  droll  way, 
*  Those  who  came  first  (our  ancestors),  are  the  young 
people,  and  have  the  least  experience.  Our  ancestors 
up  to  the  Conquest  were  children  in  arms — chubby  boys 
in  the  time  of  Edward  the  First  ;   striplings  under  Eliza- 


44  The    Critic    in    the    Bud 

beth  ;  men  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne  ;  and  we  only  are 
the  white-bearded,  silver-headed  ancients  who  have 
treasured  up,  and  are  prepared  to  profit  by,  all  the 
experience  which  human  life  can  supply. 

And,  gentlemen,  I  think  the  wit  was  right,  both  as 
regards  our  own  English  ancestors,  and  the  nations  of 
antiquity.  What,  for  instance,  was  the  much-vaunted 
Astronomy  of  the  ancient  Chaldeans — ^what  but  the 
wildest  Astrology  ?  What  schoolboy  has  not  chuckled 
over  the  ingenious  old  Herodotus's  description  of  the 
sun  being  blown  out  of  the  heavens  ?  Or  again,  at 
old  Plutarch's  veracious  story  of  the  hedgehogs  and 
the  grapes  ?  Nay,  there  are  absurdities  enough  in 
such  great  philosophers  as  Pliny,  Plato,  and  Aristotle, 
to  convince  us  that  the  ancients  were  profoundly 
ignorant  in  most  matters  appertaining  to  the  Physical 
Sciences. 

Gentlemen,  I  would  be  the  last  one  in  the  room  to 
disparage  the  ancients  :  my  admiration  of  them  amounts 
simply  to  reverence.  But  theirs  was  essentially  the  day 
of  poetry  and  imagination  ;  our  day — though  there  are 
still  poets  among  us,  as  Alexander  Smith  has  been 
proving  to  us  lately — is,  as  essentially,  the  day  of  Science. 
I  might,  if  I  had  time,  dwell  upon  another  point  here — 
the  constitution  of  the  Greek  mind  (for  it  is  upon  Greece 
I  am  now  especially  looking  as  the  soul  of  antiquity). 
Was  that  scientific  ?     Surely  not. 

The  predominant  intuition  of  the  Greek  mind,  as 
you  well  know,  was  beauty,  sensuous  beauty.  This  pre- 
vailing passion  for  the  beautiful  exhibits  itself  in  every- 
thing they  did,  and  in  everything  they  said  :  it  breathes 
in  their  poetry,  in  their  oratory,  in  their  drama,  in  their 
architecture,  and  above  all  in  their  marvellous  sculpture. 
The  productions  of  the  Greek  intellect  are  pure  temples 


*The    Great    Man,    Mankind*  45 

of  the  beautiful,  and,  as  such,  will  never  fade  and  decay, 
for 

A  thing  of  beauty  is  a  joy  for  ever. 

Nevertheless,  I  may  as  well  confess  at  once  that  I 
believe  that  Science  could  never  have  found  a  home  in 
the  Europe  of  antiquity.  Athens  was  too  imaginative 
and  poetical.  Sparta  was  too  warlike  and  barbarous. 
Rome  was  too  sensual  and  gross.  It  had  to  wait  for  the 
steady  Teutonic  mind — the  plodding  brains  of  modern 
England  and  modern  Germany.  That  Homer  is  the 
father  of  poetry — that  ^Eschylus  is  a  wonder  of  sublimity — 
that  Sophocles  and  Euripides  are  profound  masters  of 
human  passion  and  human  pathos — that  Aristophanes  is 
an  exhaustless  fountain  of  sparkling  wit  and  richest 
humour — no  one  in  this  room,  or  out  of  it,  is  more  willing 
to  admit  than  I  am.  But  is  that  to  blind  us  to  the  fact, 
gentlemen,  that  Humboldt  and  Murchison  and  Lyell  are 
greater  natural  philosophers  than  Lucretius  or  Aristotle  ? 

The  Athenian  philosopher,  Socrates,  believed  that 
he  was  accompanied  through  life  by  a  spiritual  good 
genius  and  evil  genius.  Every  right  action  he  did,  and 
every  right  thought  that  entered  his  mind,  he  attributed 
to  the  influence  of  his  good  Genius ;  while  every  bad 
thought  and  action  he  attributed  to  his  evil  Genius. 
And  this  was  not  the  mere  poetic  figment  of  a  poetic 
brain  :  it  was  a  living  and  breathing  faith  with  him.  He 
believed  it  in  his  childhood,  in  his  youth,  in  his  manhood, 
and  he  believed  it  on  his  death-bed,  when  the  deadly 
hemlock  was  winding  its  fold,  like  the  fatal  serpent  of 
Laocoon,  around  his  giant  brain.  Well,  gentlemen, 
don't  let  us  laugh  at  this  idea  of  the  grand  old  Athenian  ; 
for  it  is,  after  all,  a  beautiful  one,  and  typical  of  many 
great  truths.  And  I  have  often  thought  that  the  idea 
might   be   applied   to  a  greater  man  than  Socrates.     I 


46  The    Critic    in    the    Bud 

mean  the  great  man — mankind.  He,  too,  has  his  good 
genius  and  his  evil  genius.  The  former  we  will  designate 
science,  the  latter  we  will  call  superstition.  For  ages 
upon  ages,  superstition  has  had  the  sway  over  him — that 
evil  genius,  who  blotted  out  the  lamp  of  truth  that  God 
had  implanted  within  his  breast,  and  substituted  all 
manner  of  blinding  errors — errors  which  have  made  him 
play 

Such  fantastic  tricks  before  high  heaven 
As  make  the  angels  weep. 

This  evil  genius  it  was  who  made  him  look  upon  the 
fair  face  of  creation,  not  as  a  book  in  which  God  may  be 
read,  as  St.  Paul  tells  us,  but  as  a  book  full  of  frightful 
and  horrid  mysteries.  In  a  word,  the  great  Man  who 
ought  to  have  been  only  a  little  lower  than  the  angels, 
has  been  made,  by  superstition,  only  a  little  above  the 
fiends. 

But,  at  last,  God  has  permitted  man's  long,  long  ex- 
perience to  be  followed  by  wisdom  ;  and  we  have  thrown 
off  the  yoke  of  this  ancient  enemy,  and  clasped  the  hands 
of  Science — Science,  that  good  genius  who  makes  matter 
the  obedient  slave  of  mind  ;  who  imprisons  the  ethereal 
lightning  and  makes  it  the  messenger  of  commerce  ;  who 
reigns  king  of  the  raging  sea  and  winds ;  who  compresses 
the  life  of  Methusaleh  into  seventy  years ;  who  unlocks 
the  casket  of  the  human  frame,  and  ranges  through  its 
most  secret  chambers,  until  at  last  nothing,  save  the 
mysterious  germ  of  life  itself,  shall  be  hidden  ;  who  maps 
out  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  ;  showing  how  the  sable 
Ethiopian,  the  dusky  Polynesian,  the  besotted  Mon- 
golian, the  intellectual  European,  are  but  differently 
developed  exemplars  of  the  same  type  of  manhood,  and 
warning  man  that  he  is  still  his  '  brother's  keeuer  '  now 
as  in  the  primeval  days  of  Cain  and  Abel. 


Final    Emancipation    of   Man  47 

The  good  genius,  Science,  it  is  who  bears  us  on  his 
daedal  wings  up  into  the  starry  night,  there  where  '  God's 
name  is  writ  in  worlds,'  and  discourses  to  us  of  the  laws 
which  bind  the  planets  revolving  around  their  planetary- 
suns,  and  those  suns  again  circling  for  ever  around  the 
great  central  sun — '  The  Great  White  Throne  of  God  !  ' 

The  good  genius,  Science,  it  is  who  takes  us  back 
through  the  long  vista  of  years,  and  shows  us  this  world 
of  ours,  this  beautiful  world  which  the  wisest  and  the 
best  of  us  are  so  unwilling  to  leave,  first,  as  a  vast  drop 
of  liquid  lava-fire,  starting  on  that  mysterious  course 
which  is  to  end  only  with  time  itself ;  then,  as  a  dark 
humid  mass,  '  without  form  and  void,'  where  earth,  sea, 
and  sky,  are  mingled  in  unutterable  confusion  ;  then, 
after  countless,  countless  ages,  having  grown  to  some- 
thing like  the  thing  of  beauty  the  Creator  had  intended, 
bringing  forth  the  first  embryonic  germs  of  vegetable 
life,  to  be  succeeded,  in  due  time,  by  gigantic  trees  and 
towering  ferns,  compared  with  which  the  forest  mon- 
archs  of  our  day  are  veritable  dwarfs ;  then,  slowly, 
gradually,  developing  the  still  greater  wonder  of  animal 
life,  from  the  primitive,  half-vegetable,  half-conscious 
forms,  till  such  mighty  creatures  as  the  Megatherium,  the 
Saurian,  the  Mammoth,  the  Iguanodon,  roam  about 
the  luxuriant  forests,  and  bellow  in  chaotic  caves,  and 
wallow  in  the  teeming  seas,  and  circle  in  the  humid 
atmosphere,  making  the  earth  rock  and  tremble  beneath 
their  monstrous  movements ;  then,  last  of  all,  the  won- 
der of  wonders,  the  climax  towards  which  the  whole  had 
been  tending,  the  noblest  and  the  basest  work  of  God — 
the  creation  of  the  thinking,  reasoning,  sinning  animal, 
Man. 

And  thus,  gentlemen,  will  this  good  genius  still  go 
on,  instructing  and  improving,  and  purifying  the  human 


48  The    Critic    in    the    Bud 

mind,  and  aiding  in  the  grand  work  of  developing  the 
divinity  within  it.  I  know,  indeed,  that  it  is  a  favourite 
argument  of  some  people  that  modern  civilization  will 
decline  and  vanish,  *  like  the  civilizations  of  old.'  But  I 
venture  to  deny  it  in  toto.  From  a  human  point  of  view, 
it  is  utterly  impossible.  And  without  going  into  the 
question  (for  I  see  the  time  is  running  on)  as  to  whether 
ancient  civilization  really  has  passed  away,  or  whether 
the  old  germ  did  not  rather  spring  into  new  life  after  the 
dark  ages,  and  is  now  bearing  fruit,  ten  thousand  times 
more  glorious  than  it  ever  did  of  old ;  without  arguing 
this  point,  I  contend  that  all  comparisons  between  an- 
cient civilization  and  modern  must  of  necessity  be  futile 
and  fallacious.  And  for  this  reason,  that  independently 
of  the  civilizing  effects  of  Christianity,  Science  has  knit 
the  modern  nations  into  one  :  whereas  each  nation  of 
antiquity  had  to  work  out  its  own  problems  of  social  and 
political  life,  and  come  to  its  own  conclusions.  So  iso- 
lated, indeed,  was  one  nation  from  another,  that  nations 
were  in  some  instances  ignorant  of  each  other's  existence. 
A  new  idea,  or  invention,  born  at  Nineveh,  was  for 
Assyria  alone  ;  at  Athens,  for  Greece  alone  ;  at  Rome,  for 
Italy  alone.  There  was  no  science  then  to  '  put  a  girdle 
round  about  the  earth '  (as  Puck  says)  *  in  forty  minutes.' 
But  now,  a  new  idea  brought  to  light  in  modern  London, 
or  Paris,  or  New  York,  is  for  the  whole  world  ;  it  is 
wafted  on  the  wings  of  science  around  the  whole  habit- 
able globe — from  Ireland  to  New  Zealand,  from  India 
to  Peru.  I  am  not  going  to  say,  gentlemen,  that  Brit- 
annia must  always  be  the  ruler  of  the  waves.  The  day 
may  come  that  will  see  her  sink  to  a  second-rate,  a  third- 
rate,  or  a  fourth-rate  power  in  Europe.  In  spite  of  all 
we  have  been  saying  this  evening,  the  day  may  come  that 
will  see  Russia  the  dominant  power  in  Europe.     The 


Man*s   Good  Genius  49 

day  may  come  that  will  see  Sydney  and  Melbourne  the 
fountain  heads  of  refinement  and  learning.  It  may  have 
been  ordained  in  Heaven  at  the  first  that  each  race  upon 
the  globe  shall  be  in  its  turn  the  dominant  race — that  the 
negro  race  shall  one  day  lord  it  over  the  Caucasian,  as  the 
Caucasian  race  is  now  lording  it  over  the  negro.  Why 
not  ?  It  would  be  only  equity.  But  I  am  not  talking 
of  races ;  I  am  not  talking  of  nationalities.  I  speak 
again  of  the  great  man,  Mankind — the  one  indivisible 
man  that  Science  is  making  him.  He  will  never  retro- 
grade, because  *  matter  and  mind  comprise  the  universe,' 
and  matter  must  entirely  sink  beneath  the  weight  of 
mind — because  good  must  one  day  conquer  ill,  or  why 
was  the  world  made  ?  Henceforth  his  road  is  onward — 
onward.  Science  has  helped  to  give  him  such  a  start  that 
nothing  shall  hold  him  back — nothing  can  hold  him  back — 
save  a  fiat,  a  direct  fiat  from  the  throne  of  Almighty 
God." 

But  I  am  wandering  from  the  subject  of  the  '  Old 
House '  in  Crown  Street  and  its  connection  with  print- 
ing. The  last  important  book  that  was  ever  printed 
there  was  a  very  remarkable  one.  It  was  the  famous 
essay  on  Pantheism  by  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  friend,  the 
Rev.  John  Hunt,  D.D.,  at  that  time  a  curate  of  the 
St.  Ives  Church — a  book  that  was  the  result  of  an 
enormous  amount  of  learning,  research,  and  original 
thought,  a  book,  moreover,  which  has  had  a  great  effect 
upon  modern  thought.  It  has  passed  through  several 
editions  since  it  was  printed  at  St.  Ives  in  1866. 


w.-D. 


Chapter  IV 

CHARACTERS    IN    THE    MICROCOSM 

MRS.  CRAIGIE  has  recently  protested  against  the 
metropolitan  fable  that  London  enjoys  a  mon- 
opoly of  culture,  and  has  reminded  us  that  in  the  pro- 
vinces may  be  found  a  great  part  of  the  intellectual  energy 
of  the  nation.  It  would  be  hard  to  find  a  more  intellec- 
tual environment  than  that  in  which  Theodore  Watts 
grew  up.  Indeed,  his  early  life  may  be  compared  to  that 
of  John  Stuart  Mill,  although  he  escaped  the  hardening 
and  narrowing  influences  which  marred  the  austere 
educational  system  of  the  Mill  family.  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  father  was  in  many  respects  a  very  remarkable 
man.  '  He  was,'  says  the  famous  gypsologist,  F.  H.  Groome, 
in  Chambers's  '  Encyclopaedia,  a  naturalist  intimately 
connected  with  Murchison,  Lyell,  and  other  geologists, 
a  pre-Darwinian  evolutionist  of  considerable  mark  in  the 
scientific  world  of  London,  and  the  Gilbert  White  of  the 
Ouse  valley.'  There  is,  as  the  '  Times  '  said  in  its  review  of 
'  Aylwin,'  so  much  of  manifest  Wahrheit  mingled  with 
the  Dichtung  of  the  story,  that  it  is  not  surprising  that 
attempts  have  often  been  made  to  identify  all  the  char- 
acters. Many  of  these  guesses  have  been  wrong  ;  and 
indeed,  the  only  writer  who  has  spoken  with  authority 
seems  to  be  Mr.  Hake,  who,  in  two  papers  in  '  Notes 
and     Queries '      identified     many     of     the      characters. 


The  Gilbert  White   of  the   Ouse   Valley      51 

Until  he  wrote  on  the  subject,  it  was  generally  as- 
sumed that  the  spiritual  protagonist  from  whom 
springs  the  entire  action  of  the  story,  Philip  Aylwin,  was 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  father.  Mr.  Hake,  however,  tells 
us  that  this  is  not  so.  Philip  Aylwin  is  a  portrait  of  the 
author's  uncle,  an  extraordinary  man  of  whom  I  shall 
have  something  to  say  later.  I  feel  myself  fortunate 
in  having  discovered  an  admirable  account  of  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  father  in  Mr.  Norris's  '  History  of  St. 
Ives '  : — 

"  For  many  years  one  of  the  most  interesting  of  St. 
Ivian  figures  was  the  late  Mr.  J.  K.  Watts,  who  was  born 
at  St.  Ives  in  1808,  though  his  family  on  both  sides  came 
from  Hemingford  Grey  and  Hemingford  Abbots.  Ac- 
cording to  the  following  extracts  from  '  The  Cam- 
bridge Chronicle  and  University  Journal '  of  August  15, 
1884,  Mr.  Watts  died  quite  suddenly  on  August  7  of 
that  year  :  '  We  record  with  much  regret  the  sudden 
death  at  Over  of  our  townsman,  Mr.  J.  K.  Watts,  who 
died  after  an  hour's  illness  of  heart  disease  at  Berry 
House,  whither  he  had  been  taken  after  the  seizure.  Dr. 
J.  Ellis,  of  Swavesey,  was  called  in,  but  without  avail. 
At  the  inquest  the  post-mortem  examination  disclosed 
that  the  cause  of  death  was  a  long-standing  fatty  de- 
generation of  the  heart,  which  had,  on  several  occasions, 
resulted  in  syncope.  Deceased  had  been  driven  to 
Willingham  and  back  to  Over  upon  a  matter  of  business 
with  Mr.  Hawkes,  and  the  extreme  heat  of  the  weather 
seems  to  have  acted  as  the  proximate  cause  of  death. 

Mr.  Watts  had  practised  in  St.  Ives  from  1840,  and 
was  one  of  the  oldest  solicitors  in  the  county.  He  had 
also  devoted  much  time  and  study  to  scientific  subjects, 
and  was,  in  his  earlier  life,  a  well-known  figure  in  the 


52  Characters    in    the    Microcosm 

scientific  circles  of  London.  He  was  for  years  connected 
with  Section  E  of  the  British  Association  for  the  Ad- 
vancement of  Science,  and  elected  on  the  Committee. 
He  read  papers  on  geology  and  cognate  subjects  before 
that  Association  and  other  Societies  during  the  time 
that  Murchison  and  Lyell  were  the  apostles  of  geology. 
Afterwards  he  made  a  special  study  of  luminous  meteors, 
nnd  in  the  Association's  reports  upon  this  subject  some 
of  the  most  interesting  observations  of  luminous  meteors 
are  those  recorded  by  Mr.  Watts.  He  was  one  of  the 
earliest  Fellows  of  the  Geographical  Society,  and  one  of 
the  Founders  of  the  Anthropological  Society.' 

Mr.  Watts  never  collected  his  papers  and  essays,  but 
up  to  the  last  moment  of  his  life  he  gave  attention  to 
those  subjects  to  which  he  had  devoted  himself,  as  may 
be  seen  by  referring  to  the  'Antiquary'  for  1883  and 
1884,  where  will  be  found  two  articles  on  Cambridge- 
shire Antiquities,  one  of  which  did  not  get  into  type  till 
several  months  after  his  death.  It  was,  however,  not 
by  Archaeology,  but  by  his  geological  and  geographical 
writings  that  he  made  his  reputation.  And  it  was  these 
which  brought  him  into  contact  with  Murchison,  Liv- 
ingstone, Lyell,  Whewell,  and  Darwin,  and  also  with  the 
geographers,  some  of  whom,  such  as  Du  Chaillu,  Findlay, 
Dr.  Norton  Shaw,  visited  him  at  the  Red  House  on 
the  Market  Hill,  now  occupied  by  Mr.  Matton.  In  the 
sketches  of  the  life  of  Dr.  Latham  it  is  mentioned  that 
the  famous  ethnologist  was  a  frequent  visitor  to  Mr. 
Watts  at  St.  Ives.  Since  his  death  there  have  been  fre- 
quent references  to  him  as  a  man  of  '  encyclopaedic 
general  knowledge.' 

He  was  of  an  exceedingly  retiring  disposition,  and 
few  men  in  St.  Ives  have  been  more  liked  or  more  gener- 
ally respected.     His  great  delight  seemed  to  be  roaming 


Wells's    'Stories    after    Nature'  53 

about  in  meadows  and  lanes  observing  the  changes  of 
the  vegetation  and  the  bird  and  insect  life  in  which  our 
neighbourhood  is  as  rich  as  Selborne  itself.  On  such 
occasions  the  present  writer  has  often  met  him  and  had 
many  interesting  conversations  with  him  upon  subjects 
connected  with  natural  science." 

With  regard  to  the  family  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's 
mother,  the  Duntons,  although  in  the  seventeenth 
century  a  branch  of  the  family  lived  in  Huntingdonshire, 
some  of  them  being  clergymen  there  for  several  genera- 
tions, they  are  entirely  East  Anglian  ;  and  some  very 
romantic  chapters  in  the  history  of  the  family  have  been 
touched  upon  by  Dr.  Jessopp  in  his  charming  essay, 
'  Ups  and  Downs  of  an  Old  Nunnery.'  This  essay  was 
based  upon  a  paper,  communicated  by  Miss  Mary  Bate- 
son  to  the  Norfolk  and  Norwich  Archaeological  Society, 
and  treating  of  the  Register  of  Crab  House  Nunnery. 
In  1896  Walter  Theodore  Watts  added  his  mother's  to 
his  father's  name,  by  a  deed  in  Chancery. 

I  could  not  give  a  more  pregnant  instance  of  the  differ- 
ence in  temperament  between  a  father  and  a  son  than 
by  repeating  a  story  about  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  which  Ros- 
setti  (who  was  rich  in  anecdotes  of  his  friend)  used  to 
tell.  When  the  future  poet  and  critic  was  a  boy  in 
jackets  pursuing  his  studies  at  the  Cambridge  school,  he 
found  in  the  school  library  a  copy  of  Wells's  '  Stories 
after  Nature,'  and  read  them  with  great  avidity.  Shortly 
afterwards,  when  he  had  left  school  and  was  read- 
ing all  sorts  of  things,  and  also  cultivating  on  the  sly  a 
small  family  of  Gryengroes  encamped  in  the  neighbour- 
hood, he  was  amazed  to  find,  in  a  number  of  the 
'  Illuminated  Magazine,'  a  periodical  which  his  father, 
on  account  of  Douglas  Jerrold,  had  taken  in  from  the 


54  Characters   in    the    Microcosm 

first,  one  of  the  *  Stories  after  Nature  '  reprinted  with 
an  illustration  by  the  designer  and  engraver  Linton. 
He  said  to  his  father,  '  Why,  I  have  read  this 
story  before  !  '  *  That  is  quite  impossible,'  said-  his 
father,  *  quite  impossible  that  you  should  have  before 
read  a  new  story  in  a  new  number  of  a  magazine.' 
'  I  have  read  it  before  ;  I  know  all  about  it,'  said 
the  boy.  '  As  I  do  not  think  you  untruthful,'  said  the 
father,  '  I  think  I  can  explain  your  hallucination  about 
this  matter.'  *  Do,  father,'  said  the  son.  '  Well,' 
said  the  father,  *  I  do  not  know  whether  or  not  you  are 
a  poet.  But  I  do  know  that  you  are  a  dreamer  of  dreams. 
You  have  told  me  before  extraordinary  stories  to  the 
effect  that  when  you  see  a  landscape  that  is  new  to  you, 
it  seems  to  you  that  you  have  seen  it  before.'  '  Yes, 
father,  that  often  occurs.'  *  Well,  the  reason  for  that 
is  this,  as  you  will  understand  when  you  come  to  know  a 
little  more  about  physiology.  The  brain  is  divided  into 
two  hemispheres,  exactly  answering  to  each  other,  and 
they  act  so  simultaneously  that  they  work  like  one  brain  ; 
but  it  often  happens  that  when  dreamers  like  you  see 
things  or  read  things,  one  of  the  hemispheres  has  lapsed 
into  a  kind  of  drowsiness,  and  the  other  one  sees  the 
object  for  itself  ;  but  in  a  second  or  two  the  lazy  hemi- 
sphere wakes  up  and  thinks  it  has  seen  the  picture 
before.'  The  explanation  seemed  convincing,  and  yet  it 
could  not  convince  the  boy. 

The  very  next  month  the  magazine  gave  another  of 
the  stories,  and  the  father  said,  '  Well,  Walter,  have  you 
read  this  before  ?  '  '  Yes,'  said  the  boy  falteringly, 
'  unless,  of  course,  it  is  all  done  by  the  double  brain, 
father.'  And  so  it  went  on  from  month  to  month. 
When  the  boy  had  grown  into  a  man  and  came  to  meet 
Rossetti,  one  of  the  very  first  of  the  literary  subjects 


The    Child    Critic  55 

discussed  between  them  was  that  of  Charles  Wells's 
'  Joseph  and  His  Brethren  '  and  '  Stories  after  Nature.' 
Rossetti  was  agreeably  surprised  that  although  his  new 
friend  knew  nothing  of  '  Joseph  and  His  Brethren,'  he 
was    very   familiar   with    the    '  Stories    after    Nature.' 

*  Well,'  said  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  '  they  appeared  in 
the  "  Illuminated  Magazine."  '  '  Who  should  have 
thought,'  said  Rossetti,  '  that  the  "  Illuminated  Maga- 
zine "  in  its  moribund  days,  when  Linton  took  it  up, 
should  have  got  down  to  St.  Ives.  Its  circulation,  I 
think,  was  only  a  few  hundreds.  Among  Linton's  man- 
oeuvres for  keeping  the  magazine  alive  was  to  reprint  and 
illustrate  Charles  Wells's  "  Stories  after  Nature  "  without 
telling  the  public  that  they  had  previously  appeared  in 
book  form.'  '  They  did  then  appear  in  book  form 
first  ?  '  said  Mr.  Watts-Dunton.  '  Yes,  but  there  can't 
have  been  over  a  hundred  or  two  sold,'  said  Rossetti. 

*  I  discovered  it  at  the  British  Museum.'  '  I  read  it 
at  Cambridge  in  my  school  library,'  said  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton.  It  was  the  startled  look  on  Rossetti's  face 
which  caused  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  to  tell  him  the  story 
about  his  father  and  the  '  Illuminated  Magazine.' 

It  was  a  necessity  that  a  boy  so  reared  should  feel  the 
impulse  to  express  himself  in  literature  rather  early. 
But  it  will  be  new  to  many,  and  especially  to  the  editor 
of  the  '  Athenaeum,'  that  as  a  mere  child  he  contri- 
buted to  its  pages.  When  he  was  a  boy  he  read  the 
'  Athenaeum,'  which  his  father  took  in  regularly.  One 
day  he  caught  a  correspondent  of  the  *  Athenaeum  ' — no 
less  a  person  than  John  P.  Collier — tripping  on  a  point 
of  Shakespearean  scholarship,  being  able  to  do  so  by 
chance.  He  had  stumbled  on  the  matter  in  question 
while  reading  one  of  his  father's  books.  He  wrote  to  the 
editor  in  his  childish  round  hand,  stigmatizing  the  blun- 


56  Characters    in    the    Microcosm 

der  with  youthful  scorn.  In  due  time  the  correction 
was  noted  in  the  Literary  Gossip  of  the  journal.  Soon 
after,  his  father  had  occasion  to  consult  the  book,  and 
finding  a  pencil  mark  opposite  the  passage,  he  said, 
*  Walter,  have  you  been  marking  this  book  ? '  *  Yes, 
father.'  '  But  you  know  I  object  ?  '  '  Yes,  father, 
but  I  was  interested  in  the  point.'  '  Why,'  said  his 
father,  *  somebody  has  been  writing  about  this  very  passage 
to  the  "  Athenaeum."  '  '  Yes,  father,'  replied  the  boy, 
red  and  ungrammatical  with  proud  confusion,  '  it  was 
me.'  '  You  !  '  cried  his  astonished  father,  '  you  !  '  And 
thus  the  matter  was  explained.  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
confesses  that  he  was  never  tired  of  thumbing  that, 
his  first  contribution  to  the  'Athenaeum.' 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  influence  of  his  father 
upon  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  it  was  not,  I  think,  nearly  so 
great  as  that  of  his  uncle,  James  Orlando  Watts.     His 
father  may  have  made  him  scientific  :  his  uncle  seems  to 
have  made  him  philosophical  with  a  dash  of  mysticism. 
As  I  have  already  pointed  out,  Mr.  Hake  has  identified  this 
uncle  as  the  prototype  of  Philip  Aylwin,  the  father  of 
the  hero.     The  importance  of  this  character  in  'Aylwin  ' 
is  shown  by  the  fact  that,  if  we  analyze  the  story,  we  find 
that  the  character  of  Philip  is  its  motive  power.     After 
his  death,  everything  that  occurs  is  brought  about  by 
his  doctrines  and  his  dreams,  his  fantasies  and  his  whims. 
This  effect  of  making  a  man  dominate  from  his  grave  the 
entire    course  of  the  life  of  his  descendants  seems  to 
be  unique  in  imaginative  literature  ;    and  yet,  although 
the  fingers  of  some  critics  (notably  Mr.  Coulson  Kerna- 
han)  burn  close  to  the  subject,  there  they  leave  it.     What 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  calls  '  the  tragic  mischief  '  of   the 
drama  is  not  brought  about  by  any  villain,  but  by  the 


Robson    at   Priory    Barn  57 

vagaries  and  mystical  speculations  of  a  dead  man, 
the  author  of  '  The  Veiled  Queen.'  There  were  few 
things  in  which  James  Orlando  Watts  did  not  take 
an  interest.  He  was  a  deep  student  of  the  drama, 
Greek,  English,  Spanish,  and  German.  And  it  is 
a  singular  fact  that  this  dreamy  man  was  a  lover  of  the 
acted  drama.  One  of  his  stories  in  connection  with 
acting  is  this.  A  party  of  strolling  players  who  went  to 
St.  Ives  got  permission  to  act  for  a  period  in  a  vast  stone- 
built  barn,  called  Priory  Barn,  and  sometimes  Cromwell's 
Barn.  Mr.  J.  O.  Watts  went  to  see  them,  and  on  return- 
ing home  after  the  performance  said,  *  I  have  seen  a 
little  actor  who  is  a  real  genius.  He  reminds  me  of  what 
I  have  read  about  Edmund  Kean's  acting.  I  shall  go 
and  see  him  every  night.  And  he  went.  The  actor's 
name  was  Robson.  When,  afterwards,  Mr.  Watts  went 
to  reside  in  London,  he  learnt  that  an  actor  named 
Robson  was  acting  in  one  of  the  second-rate  theatres 
called  the  Grecian  Saloon.  He  went  to  the  theatre  and 
found,  as  he  expected,  that  it  was  the  same  actor  who  had 
so  impressed  him  down  at  St.  Ives.  From  that  time  he 
followed  Robson  to  whatsoever  theatre  in  London  he 
went,  and  afterward  became  a  well-known  figure  among 
the  playgoers  of  the  Olympic.  He  always  contended 
that  Robson  was  the  only  histrionic  genius  of  his  time. 
Mr.  Hake  seems  to  have  known  James  Orlando  Watts 
only  after  he  had  left  St.  Ives  to  live  in  London  : — 

'*  He  was,"  says  Mr.  Hake,  "  a  man  of  extraordinary 
learning  in  the  academic  sense  of  the  word,  and  he 
possessed  still  more  extraordinary  general  knowledge. 
He  lived  for  many  years  the  strangest  kind  of 
hermit  life,  surrounded  by  his  books  and  old  manu- 
scripts.    His    two    great    passions    were  philology   and 


58  Characters    in    the    Microcosm 

occultism,  but  he  also  took  great  interest  in  rub- 
bings from  brass  monuments.  He  knew  more,  I 
think,  of  those  strange  writers  discussed  in  Vaughan's 
*  Hours  with  the  Mystics '  than  any  other  person — in- 
cluding perhaps,  Vaughan  himself ;  but  he  managed  to 
combine  with  his  love  of  mysticism  a  deep  passion  for  the 
physical  sciences,  especially  astronomy.  He  seemed  to 
be  learning  languages  up  to  almost  the  last  year  of  his 
life.  His  method  of  learning  languages  was  the  opposite 
of  that  of  George  Borrow — that  is  to  say,  he  made  great 
use  of  grammars ;  and  when  he  died,  it  is  said  that  from 
four  to  five  hundred  treatises  on  grammar  were  found 
among  his  books.  He  used  to  express  great  contempt  for 
Sorrow's  method  of  learning  languages  from  dictionaries 
only.  I  do  not  think  that  any  one  connected  with  liter- 
ature— with  the  sole  exception  of  Mr.  Swinburne,  my 
father,  and  Dr.  R.  G.  Latham — knew  so  much  of  him  as  I 
did.  His  personal  appearance  was  exactly  like  that  of 
Philip  Aylwin,  as  described  in  the  novel.  Although  he 
never  wrote  poetry,  he  translated,  I  believe,  a  good  deal 
from  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  poets.  I  remember 
that  he  was  an  extraordinary  admirer  of  Shelley.  His 
knowledge  of  Shakespeare  and  the  Elizabethan  drama- 
tists was  a  link  between  him  and  Mr.  Swinburne. 

At  a  time  when  I  was  a  busy  reader  at  the  British 
Museum  reading  room,  I  used  frequently  to  see  him, 
and  he  never  seemed  to  know  anyone  among  the  readers 
except  myself,  and  whenever  he  spoke  to  me  it  was  al- 
ways in  a  hushed  whisper,  lest  he  should  disturb  the  other 
readers,  which  in  his  eyes  would  have  been  a  heinous 
offence.  For  very  many  years  he  had  been  extremely 
well  known  to  the  second-hand  booksellers,  for  he  was 
a  constant  purchaser  of  their  wares.  He  was  a  great 
pedestrian,  and,  being  very  much  attached  to  the  north 


Philip    Aylwin's    Prototype  59 

of  London,  would  take  long,  slow  tramps  ten  miles  out 
in  the  direction  of  Highgate,  Wood  Green,  etc.  I  have 
a  very  distinct  recollection  of  calling  upon  him  in  Myddel- 
ton  Square  at  the  time  when  I  was  living  close  to  him  in 
Percy  Circus.  Books  were  piled  up  from  floor  to  ceiling, 
apparently  in  great  confusion ;  but  he  seemed  to  remem- 
ber where  to  find  every  book  and  what  there  was  in  it. 
It  is  a  singular  fact  that  the  only  person  outside  those  I 
have  mentioned  who  seems  to  have  known  him  was  that 
brilliant  but  eccentric  journalist,  Thomas  Purnell,  who 
had  an  immense  opinion  of  him  and  used  to  call  him 
'  the  scholar.'  How  Purnell  managed  to  break  through 
the  icy  wall  that  surrounded  the  recluse  always  puzzled 
me  ;  but  I  suppose  they  must  have  come  across  one 
another  at  one  of  those  pleasant  inns  in  the  north  of  Lon- 
don where  ^  the  scholar '  was  taking  his  chop  and  bottle 
of  Beaune.  He  was  a  man  that  never  made  new  friends, 
and  as  one  after  another  of  his  old  friends  died  he  was  left 
so  entirely  alone  that,  I  think,  he  saw  no  one  except  Mr. 
Swinburne,  the  author  of  '  Aylwin,'  and  myself.  But  at 
Christmas  he  always  spent  a  week  at  The  Pines,  when  and 
where  my  father  and  I  used  to  meet  him.  His  memory 
was  so  powerful  that  he  seemed  to  be  able  to  recall,  not 
only  all  that  he  had  read,  but  the  very  conversations  in 
which  he  had  taken  a  part.  He  died,  I  think,  at  a  little 
over  eighty,  and  his  faculties  up  to  the  last  were  exactly 
like  those  of  a  man  in  the  prime  of  life.  He  always  re- 
minded me  of  Charles  Lamb's  description  of  George 
Dyer. 

Such  is  my  outside  picture  of  this  extraordinary 
man  ;  and  it  is  only  of  externals  that  I  am  free  to  speak 
here,  even  if  I  were  competent  to  touch  upon  his  inner 
life.  He  was  a  still  greater  recluse  than  the  '  Philip 
Aylwin  '  of  the  novel.     I  think  I  am  right  in  saying  that 


6o  Characters    in   the   Microcosm 

he  took  up  one  or  two  Oriental  tongues  when  he  was 
seventy  years  of  age.  Another  of  his  passions  was  numis- 
matics, and  it  was  in  these  studies  that  he  sympathized 
with  the  author  of  *  Aylwin's  '  friend,  the  late  Lord  de 
Tabley.  I  remember  one  story  of  his  peculiarities 
which  will  give  an  idea  of  the  kind  of  man  he  was. 
He  had  a  brother,  Mr.  William  K.  Watts,  who  was 
the  exact  opposite  of  him  in  every  way — strikingly 
good-looking,  with  great  charm  of  manner  and  savoir 
faire,  but  with  an  ordinary  intellect  and  a  very 
superficial  knowledge  of  literature,  or,  indeed,  any- 
thing else,  except  records  of  British  military  and  naval 
exploits — where  he  was  really  learned.  Being  full  of 
admiration  of  his  student  brother,  and  having  a  parrot- 
like instinct  for  mimicry,  he  used  to  talk  with  great  volu- 
bility upon  all  kinds  of  subjects  wherever  he  went,  and 
repeat  in  the  same  words  what  he  had  been  listening  to 
from  his  brother,  until  at  last  he  got  to  be  called  the 
*  walking  encyclopaedia.'  The  result  was  that  he  got 
the  reputation  of  being  a  great  reader  and  an  original 
thinker,  while  the  true  student  and  book-lover  was  fre- 
quently complimented  on  the  way  in  which  he  took  after 
his  learned  brother.  This  did  not  in  the  least  annoy  the 
real  student,  it  simply  amused  him,  and  he  would  give 
with  a  dry  humour  most  amusing  stories  as  to  what  people 
had  said  to  him  on  this  subject."  ^ 

Balzac  might  have  made  this  singular  anecdote  the 
nucleus  of  one  of  his  stories.  I  may  add  that  the  editor 
of  '  Notes  and  Queries,'  Mr.  Joseph  Knight,  knew  James 
Orlando  Watts,  and  he  has  stated  that  he  '  can  testify 
to  the  truth  '  of  Mr.  Hake's  '  portraiture.' 

'  '  Notes  and  Queries,'  August  2,  1902. 


Chapter  V 

EARLY  GLIMPSES    OF   THE    GYPSIES 

ALTHOUGH  an  East  Midlander  by  birth  it  seems 
to  have  been  to  East  Anglia  that  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  sympathies  were  most  strongly  drawn.  It  was 
there  that  he  first  made  acquaintance  with  the  sea,  and 
it  was  to  East  Anglia  that  his  gypsy  friends  belonged. 

On  the  East  Anglian  side  of  St.  Ives,  opposite  to 
the  Hemingford  side  already  described,  the  country, 
though  not  so  lovely  as  the  western  side,  is  at  first  fairly 
attractive ;  but  it  becomes  less  and  less  so  as  it  nears  the 
Fens.  The  Fens,  however,  would  seem  to  have  a  charm 
of  their  own,  and  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  himself  has 
described  them  with  a  vividness  that  could  hardly  be 
surpassed.  It  was  here  as  a  boy  that  he  made  friends 
with  the  Gryengroes  —  that  superior  variety  of  the 
Romanies  which  Borrow  had  known  years  before.  These 
gypsies  used  to  bring  their  Welsh  ponies  to  England 
and  sell  them  at  the  fairs.  I  must  now  go  back  for  some 
years  in  order  to  enrich  my  pages  with  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  graphic  description  of  his  first  meeting  with 
the  gypsies  in  the  Fen  country,  which  appeared  in 
'  Great  Thoughts  '  in  1903. 

"  I  shall  never  forget  my  earliest  recollections  of  them. 
My  father  used  sometimes  to  drive  in  a  dogcart  to  see 
friends  of  his  through  about  twelve  miles  of  Fen  country, 


62  Early    Glimpses    of   the    Gypsies 

and  he  used  to  take  me  with  him.  Let  me  say  that  the  Fen 
country  is  much  more  striking  than  is  generally  supposed. 
Instead  of  leafy  quick  hedgerows,  as  in  the  midlands,  or 
walls,  as  in  the  north  country,  the  fields  are  divided  by 
dykes ;  not  a  tree  is  to  be  seen  in  some  parts  for  miles  and 
miles.  This  gives  an  importance  to  the  skies  such  as  is 
observed  nowhere  else  except  on  the  open  sea.  The  flash- 
ing opalescent  radiance  of  the  sea  is  apt  to  challenge  the 
riches  of  the  sky,  and  in  a  certain  degree  tends  to  neutralize 
it  ;  but  in  the  Fen  country  the  level,  monotonous  greenery 
of  the  crops  in  summer,  and,  in  autumn  and  winter,  the 
vast  expanse  of  black  earth,  make  the  dome  of  the  sky, 
by  contrast,  so  bright  and  glorious  that  in  cloudless 
weather  it  gleams  and  suggests  a  roof  of  rainbows ;  and 
in  cloudy  weather  it  seems  almost  the  only  living  sight 
in  the  universe,  and  becomes  thus  more  magical  still. 
And  as  to  sunsets,  I  do  not  know  of  any,  either  by  land 
or  sea,  to  be  compared  with  the  sunsets  to  be  seen  in  the 
Fen  country.  The  humidity  of  the  atmosphere  has,  no 
doubt,  a  good  deal  to  do  with  it.  The  sun  frequently 
sets  in  a  pageantry  of  gauzy  vapour  of  every  colour,  quite 
indescribable. 

-  The  first  evening  that  I  took  one  of  these  drives, 
while  I  was  watching  the  wreaths  of  blue  curling  smoke 
from  countless  heaps  of  twitch-grass,  set  burning  by  the 
farm-labourers,  which  stretched  right  up  to  the  sky-line, 
my  father  pulled  up  the  dogcart  and  pointed  to  a  ruddy 
fire  glowing,  flickering,  and  smoking  in  an  angle  where 
a  green  grassy  drove-way  met  the  dark-looking  high-road 
some  yards  ahead.  And  then  I  saw  some  tents,  and  then 
a  number  of  dusky  figures,  some  squatting  near  the  fire, 
some  moving  about.  '  The  gypsies  !  '  I  said,  in  the 
greatest  state  of  exultation,  which  soon  fled,  however, 
when  I  heard  a  shrill  whistle  and  saw  a  lot  of  these  dusky 


East  Anglian    Gypsies  63 

people  running  and  leaping  like  wild  things  towards  the 
dog-cart.  '  Will  they  kill  us,  father  ?  '  I  said.  '  Kill  us  ? 
No,'  he  said,  laughing ;  '  they  are  friends  of  mine.  They've 
only  come  to  lead  the  mare  past  the  fire  and  keep  her 
from  shying  at  it.'  They  came  flocking  up.  So  far  from 
the  mare  starting,  as  she  would  have  done  at  such  an 
invasion  by  English  people,  she  seemed  to  know  and 
welcome  the  gypsies  by  instinct,  and  seemed  to  enjoy 
their  stroking  her  nose  with  their  tawny  but  well-shaped 
fingers,  and  caressing  her  neck.  Among  them  was  one  of 
the  prettiest  little  gypsy  girls  I  ever  saw.  When  the 
gypsies  conducted  us  past  their  camp  I  was  fascinated  by 
the  charm  of  the  picture.  Outside  the  tents  in  front  of 
the  fire,  over  which  a  kettle  was  suspended  from  an  up- 
right iron  bar,  which  I  afterwards  knew  as  the  kettle- 
prop,  was  spread  a  large  dazzling  white  table-cloth, 
covered  with  white  crockery,  among  which  glittered  a 
goodly  number  of  silver  spoons.  I  afterwards  learnt 
that  to  possess  good  linen,  good  crockery,  and  real  silver 
spoons,  was  as  '  passionate  a  desire  in  the  Romany  chi  as  in 
the  most  ambitious  farmer's  wife  in  the  Fen  country.' 
It  was  from  this  little  incident  that  my  intimacy  with 
the  gypsies  dated.  I  associated  much  with  them  in  after 
life,  and  I  have  had  more  experiences  among  them  than 
I  have  yet  had  an  opportunity  of  recording  in  print." 

This  pretty  gypsy  girl  was  the  prototype,  I  believe,  of 
the  famous  Rhona  Boswell  herself. 

It  must  of  course  have  been  after  the  meeting  with 
Rhona  in  the  East  Midlands — supposing  always  that  we 
are  allowed  to  identify  the  novelist  with  the  hero,  a 
bold  supposition — that  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  again  came 
across  her — this  time  in  East  Anglia.  Whether  this  is  so 
or  not,  I  must  give  this  picture  of  her  from  '  Aylwin  ' : — 


64  Early  Glimpses   of  the   Gypsies 

"  It  was  at  this  time  that  I  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Winnie's  friend,  Rhona  Boswell,  a  charming  little  Gypsy 
girl.  Graylingham  Wood  and  Rington  Wood,  like  the 
entire  neighbourhood,  were  favourite  haunts  of  a  superior 
kind  of  Gypsies  called  Gryengroes,  that  is  to  say,  horse- 
dealers.  Their  business  was  to  buy  ponies  in  Wales  and 
sell  them  in  the  Eastern  Counties  and  the  East  Midlands. 
Thus  it  was  that  Winnie  had  known  many  of  the  East 
Midland  Gypsies  in  Wales.  Compared  with  Rhona 
Boswell,  who  was  more  like  a  fairy  than  a  child,  Winnie 
seemed  quite  a  grave  little  person.  Rhona's  limbs  were 
always  on  the  move,  and  the  movement  sprang  always 
from  her  emotions.  Her  laugh  seemed  to  ring  through 
the  woods  like  silver  bells,  a  sound  that  it  was  impossible 
to  mistake  for  any  other.  The  laughter  of  most  Gypsy 
girls  is  full  of  music  and  of  charm,  and  yet  Rhona's 
laughter  was  a  sound  by  itself,  and  it  was  no  doubt  this 
which  afterwards,  when  she  grew  up,  attracted  my  kins- 
man, Percy  Aylwin,  towards  her.  It  seemed  to  emanate, 
not  from  her  throat  merely,  but  from  her  entire  frame. 
If  one  could  imagine  a  strain  of  merriment  and  fun  blend- 
ing with  the  ecstatic  notes  of  a  skylark  soaring  and  singing, 
one  might  form  some  idea  of  the  laugh  of  Rhona  Boswell. 
Ah,  what  days  they  were  !  Rhona  would  come  from 
Gypsy  Dell,  a  romantic  place  in  Rington  Manor,  some 
miles  off,  especially  to  show  us  some  newly  devised  coronet 
of  flowers  that  she  had  been  weaving  for  herself.  This 
induced  Winnie  to  weave  for  herself  a  coronet  of  sea- 
weeds, and  an  entire  morning  was  passed  in  grave  dis- 
cussion as  to  which  coronet  excelled  the  other." 


Chapter  VI 

SPORT  AND   WORK 

IT  was  at  this  period  that,  like  so  many  young  Eng- 
lishmen who  were  his  contemporaries,  he  gave  atten- 
tion to  field  sports,  and  took  interest  in  that  athleticism 
which,  to  judge  from  Wilkie  CoUins's  scathing  pictures, 
was  quite  as  rampant  and  absurd  then  as  it  is  in 
our  own  time.  It  was  then  too  that  he  acquired  that 
familiarity  with  the  figures  prominent  in  the  ring  which 
startles  one  in  his  reminiscences  of  George  Borrow, 
But  it  will  scarcely  interest  the  readers  of  this  book  to 
dwell  long  upon  this  subject.  Nor  have  I  time  to  re- 
peat the  humorous  stories  I  have  heard  him  tell  about 
the  queer  characters  who  could  then  be  met  at  St.  Ives 
Fair  (said  to  have  been  the  largest  cattle  fair  in  England), 
and  at  another  favourite  resort  of  his,  Stourbridge 
Fair,  near  Cambridge.  Stourbridge  Fair  still  exists,  but 
its  glory  was  departing  when  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  was 
familiar  with  it ;  and  now,  possibly,  it  has  departed  for 
ever.  Of  Cambridge  and  the  entire  county  he  tells  many 
anecdotes.     Here  is  a  specimen  : — 

Once  in  the  early  sixties  he  and  his  brother  and  some 
friends  were  greatly  exercised  by  the  news  that  Deer- 
foot,  the  famous  American  Indian  runner  in  whom  Borrow 
took  such  an  interest,  was  to  run  at  Cambridge  against 
the  English  champion.  When  the  day  came,  they  drove 
to    Cambridge   in   a    dog-cart   from   St.    Ives,   about   a 

w.-D.  "^  5 


66  Sport  and  Work 

dozen  miles.  The  race  took  place  in  a  field  called 
Fenner's  Ground,  much  used  by  cricketers.  This  is  how, 
as  far  as  I  can  recall  the  words,  he  tells  the  anecdote  :  — • 

"The  place   was   crammed   with  all   sorts  of   young 
men — 'varsity  men  and  others.     There  were  not  many 
young  farmers  or  squires   or   yeomen  within  a  radius  of 
a  good  many  miles  that   did  not   put   in  an  appearance 
on  that  occasion.     The   Indian  won   easily,  and  at  the 
conclusion   of  the   race   there  was  a  frantic  rush   to  get 
near  him  and  shake  his  hand.     The  rush  was  so  wild  and 
so  insensate  that  it  irritated  me  more  than  I  should  at 
the  present  moment  consider  it  possible  to  be  irritated. 
But  I  ought  to  say  that  at  that  time  of  my  life  I  had 
developed  into  a  strangely  imperious  little  chap.     I  had 
been  over-indulged — not  at  home,  but  at  the  Cambridge 
school   to   which   I   had   been   sent — and   spoilt.     This 
seems  odd,  but  it's  true.     It  was  the  boys  who  spoilt  me 
in  a  curious  way — a  way  which  will  not   be   understood 
by  those  who  went  to  public  schools  like  Eton,  where  the 
fagging  principle  would  have   stood   in  the  way  of   the 
development    of   the    curious    relation  between  me  and 
my  fellow-pupils  which  I  am  alluding  to.      There  is  an 
inscrutable  form  of  the  monarchic  instinct  in  the  genus 
homo  which  causes  boys,  without  in  the  least  knowing 
why,  to  select  one  boy  as  a  kind  of  leader,  or  rather  em- 
peror, and  spoil  him,  almost  unfit  him  indeed  for  that 
sense  of  equality  which  is  so  valuable  in  the  social  struggle 
for  life  that  follows  school-days.     This  kind  of  emperor 
I  had  been  at  that  school.      It  indicated  no  sort  of  real 
superiority  on  my  part ;    for  I  learnt  that  immediately 
after  I  had  left  the  vacant  post  it  was  filled  by  another 
boy — filled  for  an  equally  inscrutable  reason.      The  result 
of  it  was  that  I  became  (as  I  often  think  when  I  recall 


Deerfoot  at  Cambridge  67 

those  days)  the  most  masterful  young  urchin  that  ever 
lived.  If  I  had  not  been  so,  I  could  not  have  got  into 
a  fury  at  being  jostled  by  a  good-humoured  crowd.  My 
brother,  who  had  not  been  so  spoilt  at  school,  was  very 
different,  and  kept  urging  me  to  keep  my  temper.  '  It's 
capital  fun,'  he  said  ;  '  look  at  this  blue-eyed  young  chap 
jostling  and  being  jostled  close  to  us.  He's  fond  of  a 
hustle,  and  no  mistake.  That's  the  kind  of  chap  I  should 
like  to  know  '  ;  and  he  indicated  a  young  'varsity  man 
of  whose  elbow  at  that  moment  I  was  unpleasantly  con- 
scious, and  who  seemed  to  be  in  a  state  of  delight  at  other 
elbows  being  pushed  into  his  ribs.  I  soon  perceived  that 
certain  men  whom  he  was  with  seemed  angry,  not  on 
their  own  account,  but  on  account  of  this  youth  of  the 
laughing  lips  and  blue  eyes.  As  they  were  trying  to  make 
a  ring  round  him,  '  Hanged  if  it  isn't  the  Prince  !  '  said 
my  brother.  '  And  look  how  he  takes  it !  Surely  you 
can  stand  what  he  stands  ! '  It  was,  in  fact,  the  Prince 
of  Wales,  who  had  come  to  see  the  American  runner.  I 
needed  only  two  or  three  years  of  buffeting  with  the 
great  life  outside  the  schoolroom  to  lose  all  my  imper- 
iousness  and  learn  the  essential  lesson  of  give-and-take." 

For  a  time  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  wavered  about  being 
articled  to  his  father  as  a  solicitor.  His  love  of  the 
woods  and  fields  was  too  great  at  that  time  for  him  to 
find  life  in  a  solicitor's  office  at  all  tolerable.  Moreover, 
it  would  seem  that  he  who  had  been  so  precocious  a 
student,  and  who  had  lived  in  books,  felt  a  temporary 
revulsion  from  them,  and  an  irresistible  impulse  to  study 
Nature  apart  from  books,  to  study  her  face  to  face. 
And  it  was  at  this  time  that,  as  the  '  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica  '  remarks,  he  '  moved  much  among  the  East 
Anglian  gypsies,  of  whose  superstitions   and  folklore  he 


68  Sport  and  Work 

made  a  careful  study.'  But  of  this  period  of  his  life  I 
have  but  little  knowledge.  Judging  from  Groome's  re- 
marks upon  *  Aylwin  '  in  the  '  Bookman,'  he  alone  had 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  full  confidence  in  the  matter.  So 
great  was  his  desire  to  pore  over  the  book  of  nature, 
there  appears  to  have  been  some  likelihood,  perhaps  I 
ought  to  say  some  danger,  of  his  feeling  the  impulse 
which  had  taken  George  Borrow  away  from  civilization. 
He  seems,  besides,  to  have  shared  with  the  Greeks 
and  with  Montaigne  a  belief  in  the  value  of  leisure. 
It  was  at  this  period,  to  judge  from  his  writings,  that 
he  exclaimed  with  Montaigne,  *  Have  you  known  how 
to  regulate  your  conduct,  you  have  done  a  great  deal 
more  than  he  who  has  composed  books.  Have  you  known 
how  to  take  repose,  you  have  done  more  than  he  who 
has  taken  empires  and  cities.'  I  suppose,  however,  that 
this  was  the  time  when  he  composed  that  unpublished 
*  Dictionary  for  Nature-worshippers,'  from  which  he 
often  used  to  quote  in  the  '  Athenaeum.'  There  is  no- 
thing in  his  writings  so  characteristic  as  those  definitions. 
Work  and  Sport  are  thus  defined  :  '  Work  :  that  activity 
of  mind  or  body  which  exhausts  the  vital  forces  without 
yielding  pleasure  or  health  to  the  individual.  Sport  : 
that  activity  of  mind  or  body  which,  in  exhausting  the 
vital  forces,  yields  pleasure  and  health  to  the  individual. 
The  activity,  however  severe,  of  a  born  artist  at  his  easel, 
of  a  born  poet  at  his  rhymings,  of  a  born  carpenter  at 
his  plane,  is  sport.  The  activity,  however  slight,  of  the 
born  artist  or  poet  at  the  merchant's  desk,  is  work.  Hence, 
to  work  is  not  to  pray  We  have  called  the  heresy  of 
Work  modern  because  it  is  the  characteristic  one  of  our 
time  ;  but,  alas  !  like  all  heresies,  it  is  old.  It  was  preached 
by  Zoroaster  in  almost  Mr.  Carlyle's  words  when  Con- 
cord itself  was  in  the  woods  and  ere  Chelsea  was.' 


'  Evening   Dream-,   with   the   Poets  ' 

(From    an    Oil    Painting    at    'The    Pines') 


Phr.to.  Poole,  Putiie 


England's  Beloved  Dingles  69 

In  one  of  his  books  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  writes  with 
great  eloquence  upon  this  subject  : — 

"  How  hateful  is  the  word  '  experience  '  in  the  mouth 
of  the  litterateur.  They  all  seem  to  think  that  this 
universe  exists  to  educate  them,  and  that  they  should 
write  books  about  it.  They  never  look  on  a  sunrise 
without  thinking  what  an  experience  it  is ;  how  it  is 
educating  them  for  bookmaking.  It  is  this  that  so  often 
turns  the  true  Nature-worshipper  away  from  books  alto- 
gether, that  makes  him  bless  with  what  at  times  seems 
such  malicious  fervour  those  two  great  benefactors  of  the 
human  race,  Caliph  Omar  and  Warburton's  cook. 

In  Thoreau  there  was  an  almost  perpetual  warring 
of  the  Nature  instinct  with  the  Humanity  instinct. 
And,  to  say  the  truth,  the  number  is  smaller  than  even 
Nature  -  worshippers  themselves  are  aware  —  those  in 
whom  there  is  not  that  warring  of  these  two  great  primal 
instincts.  For  six  or  eight  months  at  a  time  there  are 
many,  perhaps,  who  could  revel  in  '  utter  solitude,'  as 
companionship  with  Nature  is  called  ;  with  no  minster 
clock  to  tell  them  the  time  of  day,  but,  instead,  the  bleat- 
ing of  sheep  and  the  lowing  of  cattle  in  the  morning,  the 
shifting  of  the  shadows  at  noon,  and  the  cawing  of  rooks 
going  home  at  sunset.  But  then  to  these,  there  comes 
suddenly,  and  without  the  smallest  warning,  a  half- 
recognized  but  secretly  sweet  pleasure  in  looking  at  the 
smooth  high-road,  and  thinking  that  it  leads  to  the  city 
— a  beating  of  the  heart  at  the  sound  of  the  distant 
railway-whistle,  as  the  train  winds  its  way,  like  a  vast 
gliding  snake,  to  the  whirlpool  they  have  left. 

In  order  to  realize  the  folly  of  the  modern  Carlylean 
heresy  of  work,  it  is  necessary  to  realize  fully  how  in- 
finitely rich  is  Nature,  and  how  generous,   and  conse- 


JO  Sport  and  Work 

quently  what  a  sacred  duty  as  well  as  wise  resolve  it  is 
that,  before  he  *  returns  unto  the  ground,'  man  should 
drink  deeply  while  he  may  at  the  fountain  of  Life.  Let 
it  be  enough  for  the  Nature-worshipper  to  know  that  he, 
at  least,  has  been  blessed.  Suppose  he  were  to  preach 
in  London  or  Paris  or  New  York  against  this  bastard 
civilization,  and  expatiate  on  Nature's  largess,  of  which 
it  robs  us  ?  Suppose  he  were  to  say  to  people  to  whom 
opinion  is  the  breath  of  life,  *  What  is  it  that  this  civili- 
zation of  yours  can  give  you  by  way  of  compensation  for 
that  of  which  it  robs  you  ?  Is  it  your  art  ?  Is  it  your 
literature  ?  Is  it  your  music  ?  Is  it  your  science  ?  ' 
Suppose,  for  instance,  he  were  to  say  to  the  collector  of 
Claudes,  or  Turners,  or  David  Coxes :  *  Your  possessions 
are  precious  undoubtedly,  but  what  are  even  they  when 
set  against  the  tamest  and  quietest  sunrise,  in  the  tamest 
and  quietest  district  of  Cambridge  or  Lincoln,  in  this 
tame  and  quiet  month,  when,  over  the  treeless  flat  you 
may  see,  and  for  nothing,  purple  bar  after  purple  bar 
trembling  along  the  grey,  as  the  cows  lift  up  their  heads 
from  the  sheet  of  silver  mist  in  which  they  are  lying  ? 
How  can  you  really  enjoy  your  Turners,  you  who  have 
never  seen  a  sunrise  in  your  lives  ?  '  Or  suppose  he 
were  to  say  to  the  opera-goer  :  '  Those  notes  of  your 
favourite  soprano  were  superb  indeed  ;  and  superb 
they  ought  to  be  to  keep  you  in  the  opera-house  on 
a  June  night,  when  all  over  the  south  of  England  a 
thousand  thickets,  warm  with  the  perfumed  breath 
of  the  summer  night,  are  musical  with  the  gurgle  of  the 
nightingales.'  Thoreau  preached  after  this  fashion,  and 
was  deservedly  laughed  at  for  his  pains. 

Yet  it  is  not  a  little  singular  that  this  heresy  of  the 
sacredness  of  work  should  be  most  flourishing  at  the  very 
time  when  the  sophism  on  which  it  was  originally  built 


Dictionary  for  Nature-Worshippers        71 

is  exploded  ;  the  sophism,  we  mean,  that  Nature  herself 
is  the  result  of  Work,  whereas  she  is  the  result  of  growth. 
One  would  have  thought  that  this  was  the  very  time  for 
recognizing  what  the  sophism  had  blinded  us  to,  that 
Nature's  permanent  temper — whatever  may  be  said  of 
this  or  that  mood  of  hers — is  the  temper  of  Sport,  that 
her  pet  abhorrence,  which  is  said  to  be  a  vacuum,  is  really 
Work.  We  see  this  clearly  enough  in  what  are  called  the 
lower  animals —whether  it  be  a  tiger  or  a  gazelle,  a  ferret 
or  a  coney,  a  bat  or  a  butterfly — the  final  cause  of  the 
existence  of  every  conscious  thing  is  that  it  should  sport. 
It  has  no  other  use  than  that.  For  this  end  it  was  that 
*  the  great  Vishnu  yearned  to  create  a  world.'  Yet 
over  the  toiling  and  moiling  world  sits  Moloch  Work  ; 
while  those  whose  hearts  are  withering  up  with  hatred 
of  him  are  told  by  certain  writers  to  fall  down  before  him 
and  pretend  to  love. 

The  worker  of  the  mischief  is,  of  course,  civilization 
in  excess,  or  rather,  civilization  in  wrong  directions.  For 
this  word,  too,  has  to  be  newly  defined  in  the  Dictionary 
before  mentioned,  where  you  will  find  it  thus  given  : — 
Civilization  :  a  widening  and  enriching  of  human  life. 
Bastard  or  Modern  Western  Civilization  :  the  art  of 
inventing  fictitious  wants  and  working  to  supply  them. 
In  bastard  civilization  life  becomes  poorer  and  poorer, 
paltrier  and  paltrier,  till  at  last  life  goes  out  of  fashion 
altogether,  and  is  supplanted  by  work.  True  freedom 
is  more  remote  from  us  than  ever.  For  modern  Freedom 
is  thus  defined  :  the  exchange  of  the  slavery  of  feudality 
for  the  slavery  of  opinion.  Thoreau  realized  this,  and 
tried  to  preach  men  back  to  common-sense  and  Nature. 
Here  was  his  mistake — in  trying  to  preach.  No  man 
ever  yet  had  the  Nature-instinct  preached  into  him." 


Chapter    VII 

EAST  ANGLIA 

WHATEVER  may  have  been  those  experiences 
with  the  gryengroes  which  made  Groome,  when 
speaking  of  the  gypsies  of  '  Aylwin,'  say  *  the  author 
writes  only  of  what  he  knows,'  it  seems  to  have  been 
after  his  intercourse  with  the  gypsies  that  he  and 
a  younger  brother,  Alfred  Eugene  Watts  (elsewhere  des- 
cribed), were  articled  as  solicitors  to  their  father.  His 
bent,  however,  was  always  towards  literature,  especially 
poetry,  of  which  he  had  now  written  a  great  deal 
— indeed,  the  major  part  of  the  volume  which  was 
destined  to  lie  unpublished  for  so  many  years.  But  be- 
fore I  deal  with  the  most  important  period  of  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  life — his  life  in  London — it  seems  necessary  to 
say  a  word  or  two  about  his  visits  to  East  Anglia,  and 
especially  to  the  Norfolk  coast.  There  are  some  admir- 
able remarks  upon  the  East  Coast  in  Mr.  William  Sharp's 
chapter  on  '  Aylwinland '  in  '  Literary  Geography,' 
and  he  notes  the  way  in  which  Rhona  Boswell  links  it 
with  Cowslip  Land ;  but  he  does  not  give  examples  of 
the  poems  which  thus  link  it,  such  as  the  double  roundel 
called  '  The  Golden  Hand.' 


The  Lover's  Dukkeripen  73 

THE  GOLDEN  HAND  ^ 

Percy 
Do  you  forget  that  day  on  Rington  strand 
When,  near  the  crumbling  ruin's  parapet, 
I  saw  you  stand  beside  the  long-shore  net 
The  gorgios  spread  to  dry  on  sunlit  sand  ? 

Rhona 
Do  I  forget  ? 

Percy 
You  wove  the  wood-flowers  in  a  dewy  band 
Around  your  hair  which  shone  as  black  as  jet : 
No  fairy's  crown  of  bloom  was  ever  set 
Round  brows  so  sweet  as  those  the  wood-flowers  spanned. 

I  see  that  picture  now ;    hair  dewy-wet : 

Dark  eyes  that  pictures  in  the  sky  expand  : 

Love-hps  (with  one  tattoo  '  for  dukkerin ')  tanned      good-luck 

By  sunny  winds  that  kiss  them  as  you  stand. 

Rhona 
Do  I  forget  ? 
The  Golden  Hand  shone  there  :    it's  you  forget, 
Or  p'raps  us  Romanies  ondly  understand 
The  way  the  Lover's  Dukkeripen  is  planned 
Which  shone  that  second  time  when  us  two  met. 

Percy 
Blest  '  Golden  Hand  '  ! 

Rhona 
The  wind,  that  mixed  the  smell  o'  violet 
Wi'  chirp  o'  bird,  a-blowin'  from  the  land 

^  Among  the  gypsies  of  all  countries  the  happiest  possible  '  Dukkeri- 
pen '  (i.e.  prophetic  symbol  of  Natura  Mystica)  is  a  hand-shaped  golden 
cloud  floating  in  the  sky.  It  is  singular  that  the  same  idea  is  found 
among  races  entirely  disconnected  with  them — the  Finns,  for  instance, 
with  whom  Ukko,  the  '  sky  god,'  or  '  angel  of  the  sunrise,'  was  called 
the  '  golden  king '  and  '  leader  of  the  clouds,'  and  his  Golden  Hand 
was  more  powerful  than  all  the  army  of  Death.  The  '  Golden  Hand  ' 
is  sometimes  called  the  Lover's  Dukkeripen. 


74  East  Anglia 

Where  my  dear  Mammy  lies,  said  as  it  fanned 
My  heart-like,  '  Them  'ere  tears  makes  Mammy  fret.' 
child  She  loves  to  see  her  chavi  lookin'  grand. 

So  I  made  what  you  call'd  a  coronet, 
And  in  the  front  I  put  her  amulet : 
She  sent  the  Hand  to  show  she  sees  me  yet. 

Percy 
Blest  '  Golden  Hand  ' ! 

In  the  same  way  that  the  velvety  green  of  Hunts  is 
seen  in  the  verses  I  have  already  quoted,  so  the  softer  side 
of  the  inland  scenery  of  East  Anglia  is  described  in  the 
following  lines,  where  also  we  find  an  exquisite  use  of  the 
East  Anglian  fancy  about  the  fairies  and  the  foxglove 
bells. 

At  a  waltz  during  certain  Venetian  revels  after  the  lib- 
eration from  the  Austrian  yoke,  a  forsaken  lover  stands 
and  watches  a  lady  whose  child-love  he  had  won  in 
England  : — 

Has  she  forgotten  for  such  halls  as  these 
The  domes  the  angels  built  in  holy  times, 
When  wings  were  ours  in  childhood's  flowery  climes 

To  dance  with  butterflies  and  golden  bees  ? — 

Forgotten  how  the  sunny-fingered  breeze 

Shook  out  those  English  harebells'  magic  chimes 
On  that  child-wedding  morn,  'neath  English  limes, 

'Mid  wild-flowers  tall  enough  to  kiss  her  knees  ? 

The  love  that  cliildhood  cradled — girlhood  nursed — 
Has  she  forgotten  it  for  this  dull  play, 
Where  far-off  pigmies  seem  to  waltz  and  sway 

Like  dancers  in  a  telescope  reversed  ? 

Or  does  not  pallid  Conscience  come  and  say, 

'  Who  sells  her  glory  of  beauty  stands  accursed  '  ? 

But  was  it  this  that  bought  her — this  poor  splendour 
That  won  her  from  her  troth  and  wild-flower  viTeath 
Who  '  cracked  the  foxglove  bells '  on  Grayland  Heath, 


Cracking  Fox-glove  Bells  'j^ 

Or  played  with  playful  winds  that  tried  to  bend  her, 
Or,  tripping  through  the  deer-park,  tall  and  slender, 
Answered  the  larks  above,  the  crakes  beneath, 
Or  mocked,  with  gUtter  of  laughing  lips  and  teeth. 
When  Love  grew  grave — to  hide  her  soul's  surrender  ? 

Mr.  Sharp  has  dwelt  upon  the  striking  way  in  which 
the  scenery  and  atmosphere  are  rendered  in  '  Aylwin,' 
but  this,  as  I  think,  is  even  more  clearly  seen  in  the 
poems.  And  in  none  of  these  is  it  seen  so  vividly  as  in 
that  exhilarating  poem,  '  Gypsy  Heather,'  published 
in  the  '  Athenaeum,'  and  not  yet  garnered  in  a  volume. 
This  poem  also  shows  his  lyrical  power,  which  never 
seems  to  be  at  its  very  best  unless  he  is  depicting  Ro- 
many life  and  Romany  passion.  The  metre  of  this 
poem  is  as  original  as  that  of  '  The  Gypsy  Haymaking 
Song,'  quoted  in  an  earlier  chapter.  It  has  a  swing  like 
that  of  no  other  poem  : — 

GYPSY  HEATHER 

'  If  you  breathe  on  a  heather-spray  and  send  it  to  your  man  it'll  show 
him  the  selfsame  heather  where  it  wur  born.' — Sinfi  Lovell. 

[Percy  Aylwin,  standing  on  the  deck  of  the  '  Petrel,'  takes  from  his 
pocket  a  letter  which,  before  he  had  set  sail  to  return  to  the  south  seas, 
the  Melbourne  post  had  brought  him — a  letter  from  Rhona,  staying 
then  with  the  Boswells  on  a  patch  of  heath  much  favoured  by  the  Bos- 
wells,  called  '  Gypsy  Heather.'  He  takes  from  the  envelope  a  withered 
heather-spray,  encircled  by  a  little  scroll  of  paper  on  which  Rhona  has 
written  the  words,  '  Remember  Gypsy  Heather.'] 

I 

Remember  Gypsy  Heather  ? 
Remember  Jasper's  camping-place 

Where  heath-bells  meet  the  grassy  dingle. 
And  scents  of  meadow,  wood  and  chase, 

Wild  thyme  and  whin-flower  seem  to  mingle  ? 
Remember  where,  in  Rington  Furze, 

I  kissed  her  and  she  asked  me  whether 


76  East   Anglia 

I  *  thought  my  lips  of  teazel-burrs, 
That  pricked  her  jis  like  whin-bush  spurs, 
pretty  mouth     Felt  nice  on  a  rinkenny  moey  like  hers  ? ' — 
Gypsy  Heather  ! 

II 

Remember  Gypsy  Heather  ? 
Remember  her  whom  nought  could  tame 

But  love  of  me,  the  poacher-maiden 
Who  showed  me  once  my  father's  game 

With  which  her  plump  round  arms  were  laden 
Who,  when  my  glances  spoke  reproach, 

Said,  "  Things  o'  fur  an'  fin  an'  feather 
Like  coneys,  pheasants,  perch  an'  loach. 
An'  even  the  famous  '  Rington  roach,' 
Wur  born  for  Romany  chies  to  poach  !  " — 
Gypsy  Heather  ! 

HI 

Remember  Gypsy  Heather  ? 
Atolls  and  reefs,  you  change,  you  change 

To  dells  of  England  dewy  and  tender  ; 
You  palm-trees  in  yon  coral  range 

Seem  '  Rington  Birches '  sweet  and  slender 
Shading  the  ocean's  fiery  glare  : 

We  two  are  in  the  Dell  together — 
My  body  is  here,  my  soul  is  there 
With  lords  of  trap  and  net  and  snare, 
The  Children  of  the  Open  Air, — 
Gypsy  Heather  ! 

IV 

Remember  Gypsy  Heather  ? 
Its  pungent  breath  is  on  the  wind, 

Killing  the  scent  of  tropic  water ; 
I  see  her  suitors  swarthy  skinned. 

Who  pine  in  vain  for  Jasper's  daughter. 
The  '  Scollard,'  with  his  features  tanned 

By  sun  and  wind  as  brown  as  leather — 


Gypsy  Heather  jj 

His  forehead  scarred  wdth  Passion's  brand — 
Scowling  at  Sinfi  tall  and  grand, 
Who  sits  with  Pharaoh  by  her  hand, — 
Gypsy  Heather ! 

V 

Remember  Gypsy  Heather  ? 
Now  Rhona  sits  beneath  the  tree 

That  shades  our  tent,  alone  and  weeping ; 
And  him,  the  '  Scollard,'  him  I  see  : 

From  bush  to  bush  I  see  him  creeping — 
I  see  her  mock  him,  see  her  run 

And  free  his  pony  from  the  tether. 
Who  lays  his  ears  in  love  and  fun. 
And  gallops  with  her  in  the  sun 
Through  lace  the  gossamers  have  spun, — 
Gypsy  Heather  ! 

VI 

Remember  Gypsy  Heather  ? 
She  reaches  '  Rington  Birches ' ;    now, 

Dismounting  from  the  '  ScoUard's  '  pony. 
She  sits  alone  vnth  heavy  brow, 

Thinking,  but  not  of  hare  or  coney. 
The  hot  sea  holds  each  sight,  each  sound 

Of  England's  golden  autumn  weather  : 
The  Romanies  now  are  sitting  round 
The  tea-cloth  spread  on  grassy  ground  ; 
Now  Rhona  dances  heather-crowned, — 
Gypsy  Heather  ! 

VH 

Remember  Gypsy  Heather  ? 
She's  thinking  of  this  withered  spray 

Through  all  the  dance ;    her  eyes  are  gleaming 
Darker  than  night,  yet  bright  as  day, 

While  round  her  a  gypsy  shawl  is  streaming ; 
I  see  the  lips — the  upper  curled, 

A  saucy  rose-leaf,  from  the  nether, 


/S  East  Anglia 

Whence — while  the  floating  shawl  is  twirled, 
As  if  a  ruddy  cloud  were  swirled — 
Her  scornful  laugh  at  him  is  hurled, — 
Gypsy  Heather  ! 

VHI 

Remember  Gypsy  Heather  ? 
In  storm  or  calm,  in  sun  or  rain, 

There's  magic,  Rhona,  in  the  writing 
Wound  round  these  flowers  whose  purple  stain 

Dims  the  dear  scrawl  of  Love's  inditing  : 
Dear  girl,  this  spray  between  the  leaves 

(Now  fading  like  a  draggled  feather 
With  which  the  nesting  song-bird  weaves) 
Makes  every  wave  the  vessel  cleaves 
Seem  purple  of  heather  as  it  heaves, — 
Gypsy  Heather  ! 

IX 

Remember  Gypsy  Heather  ? 
Oh,  Rhona  !    sights  and  sounds  of  home 

Are  everywhere  ;    the  skylark  winging 
Through  amber  cloud-films  till  the  dome 

Seems  filled  with  love,  our  love,  a-singing. 
The  sea-wind  seems  an  English  breeze 

Bearing  the  bleat  of  ewe  and  wether 
Over  the  heath  from  Rington  Leas, 
Where,  to  the  hymn  of  birds  and  bees. 
You  taught  me  Romany  'neath  the  trees, — 
Gypsy  Heather  ! 

Another  reason  that  makes  it  necessary  for  me  to  touch 
upon  the  inland  part  of  East  Anglia  is  that  I  have  certain 
remarks  to  make  upon  what  are  called  '  the  Omarian 
poems  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton.'  Although,  as  I  have  be- 
fore hinted,  St.  Ives,  being  in  Hunts,  belongs  topo- 
graphically to  the  East  Midlands,  its  sympathies  are  East 
Anglian.  This  perhaps  is  partly  because  it  is  the  extreme 


Toast  to  Omar  Khayyam  79 

east  of  Hunts,  and  partly  because  the  mouth  of  the  Ouse 
is  at  Lynn  :  to  those  whom  Mr.  Norris  affectionately 
calls  St.  Ivians  and  Hemingfordians,  the  seaside  means 
Yarmouth,  Lowestoft,  Cromer,  Hunstanton,  and  the 
towns  on  the  Suffolk  coast.  The  splendour  of  Norfolk  ale 
may  also  partly  account  for  it.  This  perhaps  also  explains 
why  the  famous  East  Anglian  translator  of  Omar  Khay- 
yam would  seem  to  have  been  known  to  a  few  Omarians 
on  the  banks  of  the  Ouse  and  Cam  as  soon  as  the  great 
discoverer  of  good  things,  Rossetti,  pounced  upon  it  in 
the  penny  box  of  a  second-hand  bookseller.  Readers  of 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  obituary  notice  of  F.  H.  Groome 
in  the  '  Athenaeum  '  will  recall  these  words  : — 

"  It  was  not  merely  upon  Romany  subjects  that 
Groome  found  points  of  sympathy  at  *  The  Pines  ' 
during  that  first  luncheon  ;  there  was  that  other  subject 
before  mentioned,  Edward  FitzGerald  and  Omar  Khay- 
yam. We,  a  handful  of  Omarians  of  those  antediluvian 
days,  were  perhaps  all  the  more  intense  in  our  cult  be- 
cause we  believed  it  to  be  esoteric.  And  here  was  a 
guest  who  had  been  brought  into  actual  personal  con- 
tact with  the  wonderful  old  '  Fitz.'  As  a  child  of  eight 
he  had  seen  him,  talked  with  him,  been  patted  on  the 
head  by  him.  Groome's  father,  the  Archdeacon  of 
Suffolk,  was  one  of  FitzGerald's  most  intimate  friends. 
This  was  at  once  a  delightful  and  a  powerful  link  between 
Frank  Groome  and  those  at  the  luncheon  table  ;  and 
when  he  heard,  as  he  soon  did,  the  toast  to  '  Omar  Khay- 
yam,' none  drank  that  toast  with  more  gusto  than  he. 
The  fact  is,  as  the  Romanies  say,  true  friendship,  like  true 
love,  is  apt  to  begin  at  first  sight." 

This  is  the  poem  alluded  to  :   it  is  entitled,  '  Toast  to 
Omar    Khayyam :    An    East    Anglian    echo-chorus    in- 


8o  East  Anglia 

scribed  to  old  Omarian  Friends  in  memory  of  happy  days 
by  Ouse  and  Cam  ' : — 

Chorus 
In  this  red  wine,  where  memory's  eyes  seem  glowing, 

And  days  when  wines  were  bright  by  Ouse  and  Cam, 
And  Norfolk's  foaming  nectar  glittered,  showing 
What  beard  of  gold  John  Barleycorn  was  growing, 
We  drink  to  thee,  right  heir  of  Nature's  knowing, 
Omar  Khayyam  ! 

I 

Star-gazer,  who  canst  read,  when  Night  is  strowing 
Her  scriptured  orbs  on  Time's  wide  orifiamme. 
Nature's  proud  blazon  :  '  Who  shall  bless  or  damn  ? 

Life,  Death,  and  Doom  are  all  of  my  bestowing !  ' 
Chorus  :  Omar  Khayyam  ! 

II 

Poet,  whose  stream  of  balm  and  music,  flowing 
Through  Persian  gardens,  widened  till  it  swam — 
A  fragrant  tide  no  bank  of  Time  shall  dam — 

Through  Suffolk  meads,  where  gorse  and  may  were  blowing, — 
Chorus  :  Omar  Khayyam  ! 

Ill 

Who  blent  thy  song  with  sound  of  cattle  lowing, 
And  caw  of  rooks  that  perch  on  ewe  and  ram, 
And  hymn  of  lark,  and  bleat  of  orphan  lamb, 

And  swish  of  scythe  in  Bredfield's  dewy  mowing  ? 
Chorus  :  Omar  Khayyam  ! 

IV 

'Twas  Fitz,  '  Old  Fitz,'  whose  knowledge,  farther  going 
Than  lore  of  Omar,  '  Wisdom's  starry  Cham,' 
Made  richer  still  thine  opulent  epigram  : 

Sowed  seed  from  seed  of  thine  immortal  sowing. — 
Chorus  :  Omar  Khayyam  ! 

V 

In  this  red  wine,  where  Memory's  eyes  seem  glowing, 
And  days  when  wines  were  bright  by  Ouse  and  Cam. 


FitzGerald's  Grave  8i 

And  Norfolk's  foaming  nectar  glittered,  showing 
What  beard  of  gold  John  Barleycorn  was  growing, 
We  drink  to  thee  till,  hark  !    the  cock  is  crowing  ! 
Omar  Khayyam  ! 

It  was  many  years  after  this — it  was  as  a  member  of 
another  Omar  Khayyam  Club  of  much  greater  celebrity 
than  the  little  brotherhood  of  Ouse  and  Cam — not  large 
enough  to  be  called  a  club — that  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
wrote    the    following    well-known    sonnet  : — 

PRAYER  TO   THE  WINDS 

On  planting  at  the  head  of  FitzGerald's  grave  two  rose-trees 
whose  ancestors  had  scattered  their  petals  over  the  tomb  of  Omar 
Khayyam. 

"  My  tomb  shall  be  on  a  spot  where  the  north  wind  may  strow 
roses  upon  it." 

Omar  KhayyXm  to  KwAjah  Nizami. 

Hear  us,  ye  winds  !     From  where  the  north-wind  strows 
Blossoms  that  crown  '  the  King  of  Wisdom's '  tomb, 
The  trees  here  planted  bring  remembered  bloom, 

Dreaming  in  seed  of  Love's  ancestral  rose, 

To  meadows  where  a  braver  north-wind  blows 

O'er  greener  grass,  o'er  hedge-rose,  may,  and  broom, 
And  all  that  make  East  England's  field-perfume 

Dearer  than  any  fragrance  Persia  knows. 

Hear  us,  ye  winds,  North,  East,  and  West,  and  South  ! 
This  granite  covers  him  whose  golden  mouth 

Made  wiser  ev'n  the  Word  of  Wisdom's  King : 
Blow  softly  over  Omar's  Western  herald 

Till  roses  rich  of  Omar's  dust  shall  spring 
From  richer  dust  of  Suffolk's  rare  FitzGerald. 

I  must  now  quote  another  of  Mr,  Watts-Dunton's 
East  Anglian  poems,  partly  because  it  depicts  the  weird 
charm  of  the  Norfolk  coast,  and  partly  because  it  illus- 
trates that  sympathy  between  the  poet  and  the  lower 

w.-D,  6 


82  East  Anglia 

animals  which  I  have  already  noted.  I  have  another 
reason  :  not  long  ago,  that  good  East  Anglian,  Mr.  Rider 
Haggard  interested  us  all  by  telling  how  telepathy 
seemed  to  have  the  power  of  operating  between  a  dog 
and  its  beloved  master  in  certain  rare  and  extraordinary 
cases.  When  the  poem  appeared  in  the  '  Saturday 
Review  '  (December  20,  1902),  it  was  described  as  *  part 
of  a  forthcoming  romance.'  It  records  a  case  of  tele- 
pathy between  man  and  dog  quite  as  wonderful  as  that 
narrated  by  Mr.  Rider  Haggard  : — 

CAUGHT    IN     THE     EBBING     TIDE 

The  mightiest  Titan's  stroke  could  not  withstand 
An  ebbing  tide  like  this.     These  swirls  denote 
How  wind  and  tide  conspire.     I  can  but  float 

To  the  open  sea  and  strike  no  more  for  land. 

Farewell,  brown  cliffs,  farewell,  beloved  sand 
Her  feet  have  pressed — farewell,  dear  Httle  boat 
Where  Gelert,^  calmly  sitting  on  my  coat. 

Unconscious  of  my  peril,  gazes  bland  ! 

All  dangers  grip  me  save  the  deadliest,  fear : 
Yet  these  air-pictures  of  the  past  that  glide — 
These  death-mirages  o'er  the  heaving  tide — 

Shovnng  two  lovers  in  an  alcove  clear. 

Will  break  my  heart.     I  see  them  and  I  hear 

As  there  they  sit  at  morning,  side  by  side. 

The  First  Vision 

fVtth  Raxton  elms  behind — in  front  the  sea, 
Sitting  in  rosy  light  in  that  alcove, 
They  hear  the  first  lark  rise  o'er  Raxton  Grove  ,' 

'  What  should  I  do  with  fame,  dear  heart  P  '  says  he. 

'  Tou  talk  of  fame,  poetic  fame,  to  me 

Whose  crown  is  not  of  laurel  but  of  love — 
To  me  who  would  not  give  this  little  glove 

On  this  dear  hand  for  Shakspeare's  dower  in  fee. 

1  A  famous  swimming  dog  belonging  to  the  vmter. 


Caught  in   the  Ebbing  Tide  83 

While,  rising  red  and  kindling  every  billow^ 

The  sun's  shield  shines  'neath  many  a  golden  spear. 

To  lean  with  you  against  this  leafy  pillow, 
To  murmur  words  of  love  in  this  loved  ear — 

To  feel  you  bending  like  a  bending  willow, 
This  is  to  be  a  poet — this,  my  dear  ! ' 

O  God,  to  die  and  leave  her — die  and  leave 

The  heaven  so  lately  won  ! — And  then,  to  know 
What  misery  will  be  hers — what  lonely  woe  ! — 

To  see  the  bright  eyes  weep,  to  see  her  grieve 

Will  make  me  a  coward  as  I  sink,  and  cleave 
To  life  though  Destiny  has  bid  me  go. 
How  shall  I  bear  the  pictures  that  will  glow 

Above  the  glowing  billows  as  they  heave  ? 

One  picture  fades,  and  now  above  the  spray 
Another  shines  :  ah,  do  I  know  the  bowers 
Where  that  sweet  woman  stands — the  woodland  flowers. 

In  that  bright  wreath  of  grass  and  new-mown  hay — 
That  birthday  wreath  I  wove  when  earthly  hours 

Wore  angel-wings, — till  portents  brought  dismay  ? 

The  Second  Vision 

Proud  of  her  wreath  as  laureate  of  his  laurel. 
She  smiles  on  him — on  him,  the  prouder  giver. 
As  there  they  stand  beside  the  sunlit  river 

Where  petals  flush  with  rose  the  grass  and  sorrel  : 

The  chirping  reed-birds,  in  their  play  or  quarrel. 
Make  musical  the  stream  where  lilies  quiver — 
Ah  !    suddenly  he  feels  her  slim  waist  shiver : 

She  speaks :    her  lips  grow  grey — her  lips  of  coral ! 

'  From  out  my  wreath  two  heart-shaped  seeds  are  swaying. 
The  seeds  of  which  that  gypsy  girl  has  spoken — 
'Tu  fairy  grass,  alas  !    the  lover's  token? 
She  lifts  her  fingers  to  her  forehead,  saying, 
'  Touch  the  twin  hearts.^     Says  he,  '  "Tzj  idle  playing  '  ; 
He  touches  them  ;    they  fall — fall  bruised  and  broken. 


84  East  Anglia 

Shall  I  turn  coward  here  who  sailed  with  Death 
Through  many  a  tempest  on  mine  own  North  Sea, 
And  quail  like  him  of  old  who  bowed  the  knee — 

Faithless — to  billows  of  Genesereth  ? 

Did  I  turn  coward  when  my  very  breath 

Froze  on  my  lips  that  Alpine  night  when  he 
Stood  glimmering  there,  the  Skeleton,  with  me, 

While  avalanches  rolled  from  peaks  beneath  ? 

Each  billow  bears  me  nearer  to  the  verge 

Of  realms  where  she  is  not — where  love  must  wait. — 

If  Gelert,  there,  could  hear,  no  need  to  urge 
That  friend,  so  faithful,  true,  affectionate, 
To  come  and  help  me,  or  to  share  my  fate. 

Ah  !    surely  I  see  him  springing  through  the  surge. 

[The  dog,  plunging  into  the  tide  and  striking 
towards  him  with  immense  strength,  reaches 
him  and  swims  round  him.] 

Oh,  Gelert,  strong  of  wind  and  strong  of  paw 

Here  gazing  like  your  namesake,  '  Snowdon's  Hound,' 
When  great  Llewelyn's  child  could  not  be  found. 

And  all  the  warriors  stood  in  speechless  awe — 

Mute  as  your  namesake  when  his  master  saw 
The  cradle  tossed — the  rushes  red  around — 
With  never  a  word,  but  only  a  whimpering  sound 

To  tell  what  meant  the  blood  on  lip  and  jaw. 

In  such  a  strait,  to  aid  this  gaze  so  fond, 

Should  I,  brave  friend,  have  needed  other  speech 

Than  this  dear  whimper  ?     Is  there  not  a  bond 

Stronger  than  words  that  binds  us  each  to  each  ? — 

But  Death  has  caught  us  both.     'Tis  far  beyond 
The  strength  of  man  or  dog  to  win  the  beach. 

Through  tangle-weed — through  coils  of  slippery  kelp 
Decking  your  shaggy  forehead,  those  brave  eyes 
Sliine  true — shine  deep  of  love's  divine  surmise 

As  hers  who  gave  you — then  a  Titan  whelp  ! 

I  think  you  know  my  danger  and  would  help  ! 
See  how  I  point  to  yonder  smack  that  lies 


Caro,   the  Guernsey   Dog  85 

At  anchor — Go  !     His  countenance  replies. 
Hope's  music  rings  in  Gelert's  eager  yelp  ! 

[The  dog  swims  swiftly  away  down  the  tide. 

Now,  life  and  love  and  death  swim  out  with  him ! 

If  he  should  reach  the  smack,  the  men  will  guess 

The  dog  has  left  his  master  in  distress. 
You  taught  him  in  these  very  waves  to  swim — 
'  The  prince  of  pups,'  you  said,  '  for  wind  and  limb  ' — 

And  now  those  lessons,  darling,  come  to  bless. 

Envoy 

(The  day  after  the  rescue  :  Gelert  and  I  walking  along  the  sand.) 

'Twas  in  no  glittering  tourney's  mimic  strife, — 
'Twas  in  that  bloody  fight  in  Raxton  Grove, 
While  hungry  ravens  croaked  from  boughs  above. 

And  frightened  blackbirds  shrilled  the  warning  fife — 

'Twas  there,  in  days  when  Friendship  still  was  rife, 
Mine  ancestor  who  threw  the  challenge-glove 
Conquered  and  found  his  foe  a  soul  to  love. 

Found  friendship — Life's  great  second  crown  of  hfe. 

So  I  this  morning  love  our  North  Sea  more 
Because  he  fought  me  well,  because  these  waves 

Now  weaving  sunbows  for  us  by  the  shore 

Strove  with  me,  tossed  me  in  those  emerald  caves 
That  yawned  above  my  head  Hke  conscious  graves — 

I  love  him  as  I  never  loved  before. 

In  these  days  when  so  much  is  written  about  the  intel- 
ligence of  the  lower  animals,  when  '  Hans,'  the  '  thinking 
horse,'  is  '  interviewed '  by  eminent  scientists,  the 
exploit  of  the  Second  Gelert  is  not  without  interest.  I 
may,  perhaps,  mention  a  strange  experience  of  my  own. 
The  late  Betts  Bey,  a  well-known  figure  in  St.  Peter's 
Port,  Guernsey,  had  a  fine  black  retriever,  named  Caro. 
During  a  long  summer  holiday  which  we  spent  in  Guern- 
sey, Caro  became  greatly  attached  to  a  friend,  and  Betts 
Bey  presented  him  to  her.  He  was  a  magnificent  fellow, 


86  East  Anglia 

valiant  as  a  lion,  and  a  splendid  diver  and  swimmer.  He 
often  plunged  off  the  parapet  of  the  bridge  which  spans 
the  Serpentine.  Indeed,  he  would  have  dived  from  any 
height.  His  intelligence  was  surprising.  If  we  wished 
to  make  him  understand  that  he  was  not  to  accompany 
us,  we  had  only  to  say,  '  Caro,  we  are  going  to  church  ! ' 
As  soon  as  he  heard  the  word  '  church  '  his  barks  would 
cease,  his  tail  would  drop,  and  he  would  look  mournfully 
resigned.  One  evening,  as  I  was  writing  in  my  room, 
Caro  began  to  scratch  outside  the  door,  uttering  those 
strange  *  woof-woofs '  which  were  his  canine  language. 
I  let  him  in,  but  he  would  not  rest.  He  stood  gazing 
at  me  with  an  intense  expression,  and,  turning  to- 
wards the  door,  waited  impatiently.  For  some  time 
I  took  no  notice  of  his  dumb  appeal,  but  his  excite- 
ment increased,  and  suddenly  a  vague  sense  of  ill 
seemed  to  pass  from  him  into  my  mind.  Drawn  half- 
consciously  I  rose,  and  at  once  with  a  strange  half-human 
whine  Caro  dashed  upstairs.  I  followed  him.  He  ran 
into  a  bedroom,  and  there  in  the  dark  I  found  my 
friend  lying  unconscious.  It  is  well-nigh  certain  that 
Caro  thus  saved  my  friend's  life. 


Chapter  VIII 

LONDON 

BETWEEN  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  and  the  brother  who 
came  next  to  him,  before  mentioned,  there  was 
a  very  great  affection,  although  the  difference  between 
them,  mentally  and  physically,  was  quite  noticeable. 
They  were  articled  to  their  father  on  the  same  day  and 
admitted  solicitors  on  the  same  day,  a  very  unusual  thing 
with  solicitors  and  their  sons.  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  after- 
wards passed  a  short  term  in  one  of  the  great  conveyanc- 
ing offices  in  London  in  order  to  become  proficient  in 
conveyancing.  His  brother  did  the  same  in  another 
office  in  Bedford  Row  ;  but  he  afterwards  practised  for 
himself.  Mr.  A.  E.  Watts  soon  had  a  considerable  prac- 
tice as  family  solicitor  and  conveyancer.  Mr.  Hake 
identifies  him  with  Cyril  Aylwin,  but  before  I  quote  Mr. 
Hake's  interesting  account  of  him,  I  will  give  the  vivid 
description  of  Cyril  in  '  Aylwin  '  : — 

"  Juvenile  curls  clustered  thick  and  short  beneath  his 
wideawake.  He  had  at  first  struck  me  as  being  not  much 
more  than  a  lad,  till,  as  he  gave  me  that  rapid,  searching 
glance  in  passing,  I  perceived  the  little  crow's  feet  round 
his  eyes,  and  he  then  struck  me  immediately  as  being 
probably  on  the  verge  of  thirty-five.  His  figure  was  slim 
and  thin,  his  waist  almost  girlish  in  its  fall.  I  should 
have  considered  him  small,  had  not  the  unusually  deep, 
loud,    manly,  and    sonorous    voice   with   which   he   had 


88  London 

accosted  Sinfi  conveyed  an  impression  of  size  and  weight 
such  as  even  big  men  do  not  often  produce.  This  deep 
voice,  coupled  with  that  gaunt  kind  of  cheek  which  we 
associate  with  the  most  demure  people,  produced  an 
effect  of  sedateness  .  .  .  but  in  the  one  glance  I  had 
got  from  those  watchful,  sagacious,  twinkling  eyes,  there 
was  an  expression  quite  peculiar  to  them,  quite  inscrut- 
able, quite  indescribable." 

Cyril  Aylwin  was  at  first  thought  to  be  a  portrait  of 
Whistler,  which  is  not  quite  so  outrageously  absurd  as 
the  wild  conjecture  that  William  Morris  was  the  original 
of  Wilderspin.     Mr.  Hake  says  : — 

"  I  am  especially  able  to  speak  of  this  character,  who 
has  been  inquired  about  more  than  any  other  in  the  book. 
I  knew  him,  I  think,  even  before  I  knew  Rossetti  and 
Morris,  or  any  of  that  group.  He  was  a  brother  of 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton's — Mr.  Alfred  Eugene  Watts.  He 
lived  at  Sydenham,  and  died  suddenly,  either  in 
1870  or  1 87 1,  very  shortly  after  I  had  met  him  at  a 
wedding  party.  Among  the  set  in  which  I  moved  at 
that  time  he  had  a  great  reputation  as  a  wit  and  humor- 
ist. His  style  of  humour  always  struck  me  as  being  more 
American  than  English.  While  bringing  out  humorous 
things  that  would  set  a  dinner  table  in  a  roar,  he  would 
himself  maintain  a  perfectly  unmoved  countenance. 
And  it  was  said  of  him,  as  '  Wilderspin  '  says  of  '  Cyril 
Aylwin,'  that  he  was  never  known  to  laugh."  ^ 

After  a  time  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  joined  his  brother, 
and  the  two  practised  together  in  London.  They  also 
lived  together  at  Sydenham.     Sometime  after  this,  how- 

*  '  Notes  and  Queries,'  June  7,  1902. 


The   Fascination  of  German    Music         89 

ever,  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  determined  to  abandon  the  law 
for  Hterature.  The  brothers  migrated  to  Sydenham,  be- 
cause at  that  time  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  pursued  music 
with  an  avidity  and  interest  which  threatened  for 
a  time  to  interfere  with  those  literary  energies  which  it 
was  now  his  intention  to  exercise.  At  that  time  the 
orchestral  concerts  at  the  Crystal  Palace  under  Manns, 
given  every  morning  and  every  afternoon,  were  a  great 
attraction  to  music  lovers,  and  Mr.  Watts-Dunton, 
who  lived  close  by,  rarely  missed  either  the  morning 
or  the  afternoon  concert.  It  was  in  this  way  that 
he  became  steeped  in  German  music  ;  and  after- 
wards, when  he  became  intimate  with  Dr.  F.  HueflFer, 
the  musical  critic  of  the  '  Times,'  and  the  exponent  of 
Wagner  in  Great  Britain,  he  became  a  thorough  Wag- 
nerian. 

It  was  during  this  time,  and  through  the  extraordinary 
social  attractions  of  his  brother,  that  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
began  to  move  very  much  in  London  life,  and  saw  a  great 
deal  of  what  is  called  London  society.  After  his  bro- 
ther's death  he  took  chambers  in  Great  James  Street, 
close  to  Mr.  Swinburne,  with  whom  he  had  already 
become  intimate.  And  according  to  Mr.  Hake,  in  his 
paper  in  '  T.  P.'s  Weekly  '  above  quoted  from,  it  was 
here  that  he  wrote  '  Aylwin.'  I  have  already  alluded 
to  his  record  of  this  most  interesting  event  : — 

"  I  have  just  read,"  he  says,  "  with  the  greatest  in- 
terest the  article  in  your  number  of  Sept.  18,  1903,  called 
'  How  Authors  Work  Best.'  But  the  following  sentence 
in  it  set  me  reflecting  :  '  Flaubert  took  ten  years  to  write 
and  repolish  "  Madame  Bovary,"  Watts-Dunton  twenty 
years  to  write,  recast,  and  conclude  "  Aylwin."  '  The 
statement  about  '  Aylwin  '  has  often  been  made,  and  in 


9©  London 

these  days  of  hasty  production  it  may  well  be  taken  by  the 
author  as  a  compliment ;  but  it  is  as  entirely  apocryphal 
as  that  about  Scott's  brother  having  written  the  Waver- 
ley  Novels,  and  as  that  about  Bramwell  Bronte  having 
written  '  Wuthering  Heights.'  As  to  '  Aylwin,'  I  happen 
to  be  in  a  peculiarly  authoritative  position  to  speak  upon 
the  genesis  of  this  very  popular  book.  If  any  one  were 
to  peruse  the  original  manuscript  of  the  story  he  would 
find  it  in  four  different  handwritings — my  late  father's, 
and  two  of  my  brothers',  but  principally  in  mine. 

Yet  I  can  aver  that  it  was  not  written  by  us,  and  also 
that  its  composition  did  not  take  twenty  years  to  achieve. 
It  was  dictated  to  us." 

Dr.  Gordon  Hake  is  mainly  known  as  the  'parable  poet,' 
but  as  a  fact  he  was  a  physician  of  extraordinary  talent, 
who  had  practised  first  at  Bury  St.  Edmunds  and  after- 
wards at  Spring  Gardens,  until  he  partly  retired  to  be 
private  physician  to  the  late  Lady  Ripon.  After  her  death 
he  left  practice  altogether  in  order  to  devote  himself  to 
literature,  for  which  he  had  very  great  equipments.  As 
'  Aylwin  '  touched  upon  certain  subtle  nervous  phases 
it  must  have  been  a  great  advantage  to  the  author  to 
dictate  these  portions  of  the  story  to  so  skilled  and  exper- 
ienced a  friend.  The  rare  kind  of  cerebral  exaltation 
into  which  Henry  Aylwin  passed  after  his  appalling  exper- 
ience in  the  Cove,  in  which  the  entire  nervous  system 
was  disturbed,  was  not  what  is  known  as  brain  fever.  The 
record  of  it  in  '  Aylwin  '  is,  I  understand,  a  literal  account 
of  a  rare  and  wonderful  case  brought  under  the  profes- 
sional notice  of  Dr.  Hake. 

As  physician  to  Rossetti,  a  few  years  after  the  death  of 
his  beloved  wife,  Dr.  Hake's  services  must  have  been 
priceless  to  the  poet-painter  ;    for,  as  is  only  too  well 


Dr.    Gordon   Hake  91 

known,  Rossetti's  grief  for  the  death  of  his  wife  had  for 
some  time  a  devastating  effect  upon  his  mind.  It  was  one 
of  the  causes  of  that  terrible  insomnia  to  relieve  himself 
from  which  he  resorted  to  chloral,  though  later  on  the 
attacks  upon  him  by  certain  foes  intensified  the  distress- 
ing ailment.  The  insomnia  produced  fits  of  melancholia, 
an  ailment,  according  to  the  skilled  opinion  of  Dr.  Hake, 
more  difficult  than  all  others  to  deal  with  ;  for  when  the 
nervous  system  has  sunk  to  a  certain  state  of  depression, 
the  mind  roams  over  the  universe,  as  it  were,  in  quest  of 
imaginary  causes  for  the  depression.  This  accounts  for  the 
'  cock  and  bull '  stories  that  were  somewhat  rife  imme- 
diately after  Rossetti's  death  about  his  having  expressed 
remorse  on  account  of  his  ill-treatment  of  his  wife.  No 
one  of  his  intimates  took  the  least  notice  of  these  wild 
and  whirling  words.  For  he  would  express  remorse  on 
account  of  the  most  fantastic  things  when  the  fits  of 
melancholia  were  upon  him ;  and  when  these  fits  were 
past  he  would  smile  at  the  foolish  things  he  had  said. 
I  get  this  knowledge  from  a  very  high  authority.  Dr. 
Hake's  son — Mr.  Thomas  St.  E.  Hake,  before  mentioned 
— who  knew  Rossetti  intimately  from  1871  until  his 
death,  having  lived  under  the  same  roof  with  him  at 
Cheyne  Walk,  Bognor  and  Kelmscott.  After  Rossetti's 
most  serious  attack  of  melancholia,  his  relations  and 
friends  persuaded  him  to  stay  with  Dr.  Hake  at  Roe- 
hampton,  and  it  was  there  that  the  terrible  crisis  of  his 
illness  was  passed. 

It  is  interesting  to  know  that  in  the  original  form  of 
'  Aylwin  '  the  important  part  taken  in  the  development 
of  the  story  by  D'Arcy  was  taken  by  Dr.  Hake,  under  the 
name  of  Gordon,  and  that  afterwards,  when  all  sorts  of 
ungenerous  things  were  written  about  Rossetti,  D'Arcy 
was  substituted  for  Gordon  in  order  to  give  the  author 


92  London 

an  opportunity  of  bringing  out  and  showing  the  world 
the  absolute  nobility  and  charm  of  Rossetti's  character. 
Among  the  many  varieties  of  life  which  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  saw  at  this  time  was  life  in  the  slums ;  and  this 
was  long  before  the  once  fashionable  pastime  of  '  slum- 
ming '  was  invented.  The  following  lines  in  Dr.  Hake's 
'  New  Day '  allude  to  the  deep  interest  that  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  has  always  shown  in  the  poor — shown  years 
before  the  writers  who  now  deal  with  the  slums  had 
written  a  line.  Artistically,  they  are  not  fair  specimens 
of  Dr.  Gordon  Hake's  verses,  but  nevertheless  it  is 
interesting  to  quote  them  here  : — 

Know  you  a  widow's  home  ?    an  orphanage  ? 
A  place  of  shelter  for  the  crippled  poor  ? 
Did  ever  limbless  men  your  care  engage 

Whom  you  assisted  of  your  larger  store  ? 
Know  you  the  young  who  are  to  early  die — 

At  their  frail  form  sinks  not  your  heart  within  ? 
Know  you  the  old  who  paralytic  lie 

While  you  the  freshness  of  your  life  begin  ? 
Know  you  the  great  pain-bearers  who  long  carry 

The  bullet  in  the  breast  that  does  not  kill  ? 
And  those  who  in  the  house  of  madness  tarry, 

Beyond  the  blest  relief  of  human  skill  ? 
These  have  you  visited,  all  these  assisted, 
In  the  high  ranks  of  charity  enlisted. 

That  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has  retained  his  interest  in 
the  poor  is  shown  by  the  sonnet,  *  Father  Christmas 
in  Famine  Street,'  which  was  originally  printed  as  '  an 
appeal '  on  Christmas  Eve  in  the  '  Athenaeum  ' : — 

When  Father  Christmas  went  down  Famine  Street 
He  saw  two  little  sisters  :    one  was  trying 
To  lift  the  other,  pallid,  wasted,  dying. 

Within  an  arch,  beyond  the  slush  and  sleet. 


The   Old-Fashioned   Christmas  93 

From  out  the  glazing  eyes  a  glimmer  sweet 
Leapt,  as  in  answer  to  the  other's  sighing, 
While  came  a  murmur,  '  Don't  'ee  keep  on  crying — 

I  wants  to  die  :    you'll  get  my  share  to  eat.' 

Her  knell  was  tolled  by  joy-bells  of  the  city 

Hymning  the  birth  of  Jesus,  Lord  of  Pity, 
Lover  of  children.  Shepherd  of  Compassion. 

Said  Father  Christmas,  while  his  eyes  grew  dim, 
'  They  do  His  bidding — if  in  thrifty  fashion  : 

They  let  the  little  children  go  to  Him.' 

With    this    sonnet    should    be    placed    that    entitled, 
'  Dickens  Returns  on  Christmas  Day '  : — 

A  ragged   girl  in   Drury  Lane  was  heard  to  exclaim  :   '  Dickens 
dead  ?     Then  will  Father  Christmas  die  too  ?  ' — June  9,  1870. 

'  Dickens  is  dead  !  '     Beneath  that  grievous  cry 

London  seemed  shivering  in  the  summer  heat ; 

Strangers  took  up  the  tale  like  friends  that  meet : 
'  Dickens  is  dead  ! '  said  they,  and  hurried  by ; 
Street  children  stopped  their  games — they  knew  not  why. 

But  some  new  night  seemed  darkening  down  the  street. 

A  girl  in  rags,  staying  her  wayworn  feet, 
Cried,  '  Dickens  dead  ?     Will  Father  Christmas  die  ? ' 

City  he  loved,  take  courage  on  thy  way  ! 
He  loves  thee  still,  in  all  thy  joys  and  fears. 

Though  he  whose  smile  made  bright  thine  eyes  of  grey — 
Though  he  whose  voice,  uttering  thy  burthened  years, 
Made  laughters  bubble  through  thy  sea  of  tears — 

Is  gone,  Dickens  returns  on  Christmas  Day  ! 

Let  me  say  here,  parenthetically,  that '  The  Pines '  is  so 
far  out  of  date  that  for  twenty-five  years  it  has  been 
famous  for  its  sympathy  with  the  Christmas  sentiment 
which  now  seems  to  be  fading,  as  this  sonnet  shows  : — 


94  London 

THE  CHRISTMAS  TREE  AT  *  THE  PINES.' 

Life  still  hath  one  romance  that  naught  can  bury — 
Not  Time  himself,  who  coffins  Life's  romances — 
For  still  will  Christmas  gild  the  year's  mischances, 

If  Childhood  comes,  as  here,  to  make  him  merry — 

To  kiss  with  lips  more  ruddy  than  the  cherry — 
To  smile  with  eyes  outshining  by  their  glances 
The  Christmas  tree — to  dance  with  fairy  dances 

And  crown  his  hoary  brow  with  leaf  and  berry. 

And  as  to  us,  dear  friend,  the  carols  sung 
Are  fresh  as  ever.     Bright  is  yonder  bough 

Of  mistletoe  as  that  which  shone  and  swung 
When  you  and  I  and  Friendship  made  a  vow 
That  Childhood's  Christmas  still  should  seal  each  brow — 

Friendship's,  and  yours,  and  mine — and  keep  us  young. 

I  may  also  quote  from  *  Prophetic  Pictures  at  Venice  ' 
this  romantic  description  of  the  Rosicrucian  Christmas  : — 

(The  morning  light  falls  on  the  Rosicrucian  panel  -  picture 
called  '  The  Rosy  Scar,'  depicting  Christian  galley  -  slaves  on 
board  an  Algerine  galley,  watching,  on  Christmas  Eve,  for  the 
promised  appearance  of  Rosenkreutz,  as  a  '  rosy  phantom.'  The 
Lover  reads  aloud  the  descriptive  verses  on  the  frame.) 

While  Night's  dark  horses  waited  for  the  wind. 
He  stood — he  shone — where  Sunset's  fiery  glaives 
Flickered  behind  the  clouds ;    then,  o'er  the  waves, 

He  came  to  them.  Faith's  remnant  sorrow-thinned. 

The  Paynim  sailors  clustering,  tawny-skinned, 

Cried,  '  Who  is  he  that  comes  to  Christian  slaves  ? 
Nor  water-sprite  nor  jinni  of  sunset  caves. 

The  rosy  phantom  stands  nor  winged  nor  finned.' 

All  night  he  stood  till  shone  the  Christmas  star  ; 

Slowly  the  Rosy  Cross,  streak  after  streak. 
Flushed  the  grey  sky — flushed  sea  and  sail  and  spar. 

Flushed,  blessing  every  slave's  woe-wasted  cheek. 

Then  did  great  Rosenkreutz,  the  Dew-King  speak  : 
'  Sufferers,  take  heart !     Christ  lends  the  Rosy  Scar.' 


Chapter  IX 

GEORGE  BORROW 

IT  was  not   until  1872    that  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  was 
introduced    to    Borrow    hy   Dr.    Gordon   Hake, 
Borrow's  most  intimate  friend. 

The  way  in  which  this  meeting  came  about  has  been 
familiar  to  the  readers  of  an  autobiographical  romance 
(not  even  yet  published  !)  wherein  Borrow  appears 
under  the  name  of  Dereham,  and  Hake  under  the  name 
of  Gordon.  But  as  some  of  these  passages  in  a  modified 
form  have  appeared  in  print  in  an  introduction  by 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  to  the  edition  of  Borrow's  '  Laven- 
gro,'  published  by  Messrs.  Ward,  Lock  &  Co.,  in  1893, 
there  will  be  nothing  incongruous  in  my  quoting  them 
here  : — 

"  Great  as  was  the  difference  in  age  between  Gordon 
and  me,  there  soon  grew  up  an  intimacy  between  us. 
It  has  been  my  experience  to  learn  that  an  enormous  deal 
of  nonsense  has  been  written  about  difference  of  age  be- 
tween friends  of  either  sex.  At  that  time  I  do  not  think 
I  had  one  intimate  friend  of  my  own  age  except  Rosa- 
mond, while  I  was  on  terms  of  something  like  intimacy 
with  two  or  three  distinguished  men,  each  one  of  whom 
was  certainly  old  enough  to  be  my  father.  Basevi  was 
one  of  these  :  so  was  Lineham.  I  daresay  it  was  owing  to 
some  idiosyncrasy  of  mine,  but  the  intimacy  between 
me  and  the  young  fellows  with  whom  I  was  brought  into 


96  George   Borrow 

contact  was  mainly  confined  to  matters  connected  with 
field-sports.  I  found  it  far  easier  to  be  brought  into 
relations  of  close  intimacy  with  women  of  my  own  age 
than  with  men.  But  as  Basevi  told  me  that  it  was 
the  same  with  himself,  I  suppose  that  this  was  not  an 
eccentricity  after  all.  When  Gordon  and  I  were  to- 
gether it  never  occurred  to  me  that  there  was  any  differ- 
ence in  our  ages  at  all,  and  he  told  me  that  it  was  the  same 
with  himself. 

One  day  when  I  was  sitting  with  him  in  his  delightful 
house  near  Roehampton,  whose  windows  at  the  back 
looked  over  Richmond  Park,  and  in  front  over  the  wildest 
part  of  Wimbledon  Common,  one  of  his  sons  came  in 
and  said  that  he  had  seen  Dereham  striding  across  the 
common,  evidently  bound  for  the  house. 

'  Dereham  !  '  I  said.  '  Is  there  a  man  in  the  world 
I  should  so  like  to  see  as  Dereham  ?  ' 

And  then  I  told  Gordon  how  I  had  seen  him  years 
before  swimming  in  the  sea  off  Yarmouth,  but  had 
never  spoken  to  him. 

'  Why  do  you  want  so  much  to  see  him  ?  '  asked 
Gordon. 

'  Well,  among  other  things  I  want  to  see  if  he  is  a 
true  Child  of  the  Open  Air.' 

Gordon  laughed,  perfectly  understanding  what  I 
meant.  But  it  is  necessary  here  to  explain  what  that 
meaning  was. 

We  both  agreed  that,  with  all  the  recent  cultivation 
of  the  picturesque  by  means  of  watercolour  landscape, 
descriptive  novels,  '  Cook's  excursions,'  etc.,  the  real 
passion  for  Nature  is  as  rare  as  ever  it  was — perhaps  rarer. 
It  was,  we  believed,  quite  an  affair  of  individual  tem- 
perament :  it  cannot  be  learned  ;  it  cannot  be  lost. 
That  no  writer  has  ever  tried  to  explain  it  shows  how 


Children  of  the  Open  Air  97 

little  it  is  known.  Often  it  has  but  little  to  do  with 
poetry,  little  with  science.  The  poet,  indeed,  rarely  has 
it  at  its  very  highest ;  the  man  of  science  as  rarely.  I 
wish  I  could  define  it.  In  human  souls — in  one,  per- 
haps, as  much  as  in  another — there  is  always  that  instinct 
for  contact  which  is  a  great  factor  of  progress ;  there 
is  always  an  irresistible  yearning  to  escape  from  isolation, 
to  get  as  close  as  may  be  to  some  other  conscious  thing. 
In  most  individuals  this  yearning  is  simply  for  contact 
with  other  human  souls ;  in  some  few  it  is  not.  There 
are  some  in  every  country  of  whom  it  is  the  blessing,  not 
the  bane  that,  owing  to  some  exceptional  power,  or  to 
some  exceptional  infirmity,  they  can  get  closer  to  *  Na- 
tura  Benigna  '  herself,  closer  to  her  whom  we  now  call 
*  Inanimate  Nature,'  than  to  brother,  sister,  wife,  or 
friend.  Darwin  among  English  savants,  and  Emily 
Bronte  among  English  poets,  and  Sinfi  Lovell  among 
English  gypsies,  showed  a  good  deal  of  the  character- 
istics of  the  *  Children  of  the  Open  Air.'  But  in  regard 
to  Darwin,  besides  the  strength  of  his  family  ties,  the 
pedantic  inquisitiveness,  the  methodizing  pedantry  of 
the  man  of  science  ;  in  Emily  Bronte,  the  sensitivity  to 
human  contact ;  and  in  Sinfi  Lovell,  subjection  to  the 
love  passion — disturbed,  and  indeed  partially  stifled,  the 
native  instinct  with  which  they  were  undoubtedly  en- 
dowed. I  was  perfectly  conscious  that  I  belonged  to 
the  third  case  of  Nature-worshippers — that  is,  I  was  one 
of  those  who,  howsoever  strongly  drawn  to  Nature  and 
to  a  free  and  unconventional  life,  felt  the  strength  of 
the  love  passion  to  such  a  degree  that  it  prevented  my 
claiming  to  be  a  genuine  Child  of  the  Open  Air. 

Between  the  true  *  Children  of  the  Open  Air '  and 
their  fellows  there  are  barriers  of  idiosyncrasy,  barriers 
of  convention,  or  other  barriers  quite  indefinable,  which 

w.-D.  7 


98  George  Borrow 

they  find  most  difficult  to  overpass,  and,  even  when  they 
succeed  in  overpassing  them,  the  attempt  is  not  found  to 
be  worth  the  making.  For,  what  this  kind  of  Nature- 
worshipper  finds  in  intercourse  with  his  fellow-men  is, 
not  the  unegoistic  frankness  of  Nature,  his  first  love, 
inviting  him  to  touch  her  close,  soul  to  soul — but  an- 
other ego  enisled  like  his  own — sensitive,  shrinking,  like 
his  own — a  soul  which,  love  him  as  it  may,  is,  nevertheless, 
and  for  all  its  love,  the  central  ego  of  the  universe  to 
itself,  the  very  Alcyone  round  whom  all  other  Nature- 
worshippers  revolve  like  the  rest  of  the  human  constel- 
lations. But  between  these  and  Nature  there  is  no  such 
barrier,  and  upon  Nature  they  lavish  their  love,  *  a  most 
equal  love  '  that  varies  no  more  with  her  change  of  mood 
than  does  the  love  of  a  man  for  a  beautiful  woman, 
whether  she  smiles,  or  weeps,  or  frowns.  To  them  a 
Highland  glen  is  most  beautiful ;  so  is  a  green  meadow  ; 
so  is  a  mountain  gorge  or  a  barren  peak  ;  so  is  a  South 
American  savannah.  A  balmy  summer  is  beautiful,  but 
not  more  beautiful  than  a  winter's  sleet  beating  about 
the  face,  and  stinging  every  nerve  into  delicious  life. 

To  the  *  Child  of  the  Open  Air  '  life  has  but  few 
ills ;  poverty  cannot  touch  him.  Let  the  Stock  Ex- 
change rob  him  of  his  bonds,  and  he  will  go  and  tend 
sheep  in  Sacramento  Valley,  perfectly  content  to  see  a 
dozen  faces  in  a  year  ;  so  far  from  being  lonely,  he  has 
got  the  sky,  the  wind,  the  brown  grass,  and  the  sheep. 
And  as  life  goes  on,  love  of  Nature  grows,  both  as  a  cultus 
and  a  passion,  and  in  time  Nature  seems  *  to  know  him 
and  love  him  '  in  her  turn. 

Dereham  entered,  and,  suddenly  coming  upon  me, 
there  was  no  retreating,  and  we  were  introduced. 

He  tried  to  be  as  civil  as  possible,  but  evidently  he 
was  much  annoyed.     Yet  there  was  something  in  the 


Ambrose  Gwinett  99 

very  tone  of  his  voice  that  drew  my  heart  to  him,  for  to 
me  he  was  the  hero  of  my  boyhood  still.  My  own  shy- 
ness was  being  rapidly  fingered  off  by  the  rough  handling 
of  the  world,  but  his  retained  all  the  bloom  of  youth,  and 
a  terrible  barrier  it  was ;  yet  I  attacked  it  manfully.  I 
knew  from  his  books  that  Dereham  had  read  but  little 
except  in  his  own  out-of-the-way  directions ;  but  then, 
unfortunately,  like  all  specialists,  he  considered  that  in 
these  his  own  special  directions  lay  all  the  knowledge  that 
was  of  any  value.  Accordingly,  what  appeared  to  Dere- 
ham as  the  most  striking  characteristic  of  the  present  age 
was  its  ignorance.  Unfortunately,  too,  I  knew  that  for 
strangers  to  talk  of  his  own  published  books,  or  of  gypsies, 
appeared  to  him  to  be  '  prying,'  though  there  I  should 
have  been  quite  at  home.  I  knew,  however,  from  his 
books  that  in  the  obscure  English  pamphlet  literature 
of  the  last  century,  recording  the  sayings  and  doings  of 
eccentric  people  and  strange  adventures,  Dereham  was 
very  learned,  and  I  too  chanced  to  be  far  from  ignorant 
in  that  direction.  I  touched  on  Bamfylde  Moore 
Carew,  but  without  effect.  Dereham  evidently  con- 
sidered that  every  properly  educated  man  was  familiar 
with  the  story  of  Bamfylde  Moore  Carew  in  its  every 
detail.  Then  I  touched  upon  beer,  the  British  bruiser, 
*  gentility  nonsense,'  and  other  '  nonsense  ' ;  then  upon 
etymology — traced  hoity-toityism  to  *  toit,'  a  roof — but 
only  to  have  my  shallow  philology  dismissed  with  a 
withering  smile.  I  tried  other  subjects  in  the  same 
direction,  but  with  small  success,  till  in  a  lucky  moment 
I  bethought  myself  of  Ambrose  Gwinett.  There  is  a 
very  scarce  eighteenth  century  pamphlet  narrating  the 
story  of  Ambrose  Gwinett,  the  man  who,  after  having 
been  hanged  and  gibbeted  for  murdering  a  traveller  with 
whom  he  had  shared  a  double-bedded  room  at  a  seaside 


loo  George  Borrow 

inn,  revived  in  the  night,  escaped  from  the  gibbet-irons, 
went  to  sea  as  a  common  sailor,  and  afterwards  met  on 
a  British  man-of-war  the  very  man  he  had  been  hanged 
for  murdering.  The  truth  was  that  Gwinett's  supposed 
victim,  having  been  seized  on  the  night  in  question 
with  a  violent  bleeding  at  the  nose,  had  risen  and  left  the 
house  for  a  few  minutes'  walk  in  the  sea-breeze,  when 
the  press-gang  captured  him  and  bore  him  off  to  sea, 
where  he  had  been  in  service  ever  since.  I  introduced 
the  subject  of  Ambrose  Gwinett,  and  Douglas  Jerrold's 
play  upon  it,  and  at  once  the  ice  between  us  thawed 
and  we  became  friends. 

We  all  went  out  of  the  house  and  looked  over  the 
common.  It  chanced  that  at  that  very  moment  there 
were  a  few  gypsies  encamped  on  the  sunken  road  opposite 
to  Gordon's  house.  These  same  gypsies,  by  the  by, 
form  the  subject  of  a  charming  sketch  by  Herkomer 
which  appeared  in  the  *  Graphic'  Borrow  took  the 
trouble  to  assure  us  that  they  were  not  of  the  better  class 
of  gypsies,  the  gryengroes,  but  basket-makers.  After 
passing  this  group  we  went  on  the  common.  We  did 
not  at  first  talk  much,  but  it  delighted  me  to  see  the 
mighty  figure,  strengthened  by  the  years  rather  than 
stricken  by  them,  striding  along  between  the  whin 
bushes  or  through  the  quags,  now  stooping  over  the 
water  to  pluck  the  wild  mint  he  loved,  whose  lilac- 
coloured  blossoms  perfumed  the  air  as  he  crushed 
them,  now  stopping  to  watch  the  water  wagtails  by 
the  ponds. 

After  the  stroll  we  turned  back  and  went,  at  Dere- 
ham's suggestion,  for  a  ramble  through  Richmond  Park, 
calling  on  the  way  at  the  '  Bald-Faced  Stag  '  in  Kingston 
Vale,  in  order  that  Dereham  should  introduce  me  to 
Jerry  Abershaw's  sword,  which  was  one  of  the  special 


The  Spirit  of  the  Rainbow  loi 

glories  of  that  once  famous  hostelry.  A  divine  summer 
day  it  was  I  remember — a  day  whose  heat  would  have 
been  oppressive  had  it  not  been  tempered  every  now  and 
then  by  a  playful  silvery  shower  falling  from  an  occa- 
sional wandering  cloud,  whose  slate-coloured  body 
thinned  at  the  edges  to  a  fringe  of  lace  brighter  than  any 
silver. 

These  showers,  however,  seemed,  as  Dereham  re- 
marked, merely  to  give  a  rich  colour  to  the  sunshine,  and 
to  make  the  wild  flowers  in  the  meadows  on  the  left 
breathe  more  freely.  In  a  word,  it  was  one  of  those  un- 
certain summer  days  whose  peculiarly  English  charm 
was  Dereham's  special  delight.  He  liked  rain,  but  he 
liked  it  falling  on  the  green  umbrella  (enormous,  shaggy, 
like  a  gypsy-tent  after  a  summer  storm)  he  generally 
carried.  As  we  entered  the  Robin  Hood  Gate  we  were 
confronted  by  a  sudden  weird  yellow  radiance,  magical 
and  mysterious,  which  showed  clearly  enough  that  in  the 
sky  behind  us  there  was  gleaming  over  the  fields  and 
over  Wimbledon  Common  a  rainbow  of  exceptional 
brilliance,  while  the  raindrops  sparkling  on  the  ferns 
seemed  answering  every  hue  in  the  magic  arch  far  away. 
Dereham  told  us  some  interesting  stories  of  Romany 
superstition  in  connection  with  the  rainbow — how,  by 
making  a  '  trus'hul '  (cross)  of  two  sticks,  the  Romany  chi 
who  *  pens  the  dukkerin  can  wipe  the  rainbow  out  of  the 
sky,'  etc.  Whereupon  Gordon,  quite  as  original  a  man 
as  Dereham,  and  a  humourist  of  a  rarer  temper,  launched 
out  into  a  strain  of  wit  and  whim,  which  it  is  not  my 
business  here  to  record,  upon  the  subject  of  the  *  Spirit 
of  the  Rainbow  '  which  I,  as  a  child,  went  out  to  find. 

Dereham  loved  Richmond  Park,  and  he  seemed  to 
know  every  tree.  I  found  also  that  he  was  extremely 
learned  in  deer,  and  seemed  familiar  with  every  dappled 


I02  George  Borrow 

coat  which,  washed  and  burnished  by  the  showers,  seemed 
to  shine  in  the  sun  like  metal.  Of  course,  I  observed 
him  closely,  and  I  began  to  wonder  whether  I  had  en- 
countered, in  the  silvery-haired  giant  striding  by  my 
side,  with  a  vast  umbrella  under  his  arm,  a  true  '  Child 
of  the  Open  Air.' 

*  Did  a  true  Child  of  the  Open  Air  ever  carry  a  gigantic 
green  umbrella  that  would  have  satisfied  Sarah  Gamp 
herself  ?  '  I  murmured  to  Gordon,  while  Dereham 
lingered  under  a  tree  and,  looking  round  the  Park,  said 
in  a  dreamy  way,  *  Old  England  !     Old  England  ! ' 

It  was  the  umbrella,  green,  manifold  and  bulging, 
under  Dereham's  arm,  that  made  me  ask  Gordon,  as 
Dereham  walked  along  beneath  the  trees,  *  Is  he  a  genu- 
ine Child  of  the  Open  Air  ?  '  And  then,  calling  to  mind 
the  books  he  had  written,  I  said :  *  He  went  into  the 
Dingle,  and  lived  alone — went  there,  not  as  an  experi- 
ment in  self-education,  as  Thoreau  went  and  lived  by 
Walden  Pond.     He  could  enjoy  living  alone,   for  the 

*  horrors  '  to  which  he  was  occasionally  subject  did  not 
spring  from  solitary  living.  He  was  never  disturbed  by 
passion  as  was  the  Nature-worshipper  who  once  played 
such  selfish  tricks  with  Sinfi  Lovell,  and  as  Emily  Bronte 
would  certainly  have  been  had  she  been  placed  in  such 
circumstances  as  Charlotte  Bronte  placed  Shirley.' 

*  But  the  most   damning   thing  of  all,'  said  Gordon, 

*  is  that  umbrella,  gigantic  and  green  :  a  painful  thought 
that  has  often  occurred  to  me.' 

*  Passion  has  certainly  never  disturbed  his  nature- 
worship,'  said  I.  *  So  devoid  of  passion  is  he  that  to 
depict  a  tragic  situation  is  quite  beyond  his  powers. 
Picturesque  he  always  is,  powerful  never.  No  one  read- 
ing an  account  of  the  privations  of  the  hero  of  this  story 
finds  himself  able  to  realize  from  Dereham's  description 


Ambition  v.   Nature— Worship  103 

the  misery  of  a  young  man  tenderly  reared,  and  with 
all  the  pride  of  an  East  Anglian  gentleman,  living  on 
bread  and  water  in  a  garret,  with  starvation  staring 
him  in  the  face.     It  is  not  passion,'  I  said  to  Gordon, 

*  that  prevents  Dereham  from  enjoying  the  peace  of 
the  Nature-worshipper.  It  is  Ambition  !  His  books  show 
that  he  could  never  cleanse  his  stuffed  bosom  of  the 
perilous  stuff  of  ambition.  To  become  renowned,  judg- 
ing from  many  a  peroration  in  his  books,  was  as  great  an 
incentive  to  Dereham  to  learn  languages  as  to  Alexander 
Smith's  poet-hero  it  was  an  incentive  to  write  poetry.' 

*  Ambition     and     the     green     gamp,'    said    Gordon- 

*  But  look,  the  rainbow  is  fading  from  the  sky  with- 
out the  intervention  of  gypsy  sorceries ;  and  see  how 
the  ferns  are  changing  colour  with  the  change  in  the 

light.' 

But  I  soon  found  that  if  Dereham  was  not  a  perfect 
Child  of  the  Open  Air,  he  was  something  better  :  a  man 
of  that  deep  sympathy  with  human   kind  which    the 

*  Child  of  the  Open  Air  '  must  needs  lack. 

Knowing  Dereham's  extraordinary  shyness  and  his 
great  dislike  of  meeting  strangers,  Gordon,  while  Dere- 
ham was  trying  to  get  as  close  to  the  deer  as  they  would 
allow,  expressed  to  me  his  surprise  at  the  terms  of  cordial 
friendship  that  sprang  up  between  us  during  that  walk. 
But  I  was  not  surprised  :  there  were  several  reasons  why 
Dereham  should  at  once  take  to  me — reasons  that  had 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  any  inherent  attractiveness 
of  my  own. 

By  recalling  what  occurred  I  can  throw  a  more  bril- 
liant light  upon  Dereham's  character  than  by  any  kind 
of  analytical  disquisition. 

Two  herons  rose  from  the  Ponds  and  flew  away  to 
where  they  probably  had  their  nests.     By  the  expressiori 


I04  George  Borrow 

on  Dereham's  face  as  he  stood  and  gazed  at  them,  I  knew 
that,  like  myself,  he  had  a  passion  for  herons. 

*  Were  there  many  herons  around  Whittlesea  Mere 
before  it  was  drained  ? '  I  said. 

*  I  should  think  so,'  said  he  dreamily,  *  and  every 
kind  of  water  bird.' 

Then,  suddenly  turning  round  upon  me  with  a  start, 
he  said,  *  But  how  do  you  know  that  I  knew  Whittlesea 
Mere  ?  ' 

*  You  say  in  one  of  your  books  that  you  played 
among  the  reeds  of  Whittlesea  Mere  when  you  were  a 
child.' 

*  I  don't  mention  Whittlesea  Mere  in  any  of  my 
books,'  he  said. 

*  No,'  said  I,  *  but  you  speak  of  a  lake  near  the  old 
State  prison  at  Norman  Cross,  and  that  was  Whittlesea 
Mere.' 

*  Then  you  know  Whittlesea  Mere  ?  '  said  Dereham, 
much  interested. 

*  I  know  the  place  that  was  Whittlesea  Mere  before 
it  was  drained,'  I  said,  '  and  I  know  the  vipers  around 
Norman  Cross,  and  I  think  I  know  the  lane  where  you 
first  met  that  gypsy  you  have  immortalized.  He  was  a 
generation  before  my  time.  Indeed,  I  never  was  thrown 
much  across  the  Petulengroes  in  the  Eastern  Counties, 
but  I  knew  some  of  the  Hemes  and  the  Lees  and  the 
Lovells.' 

I  then  told  him  what  I  knew  about  Romanies  and 
vipers,  and  also  gave  him  Marcianus's  story  about  the 
Moors  being  invulnerable  to  the  viper's  bite,  and  about 
their  putting  the  true  breed  of  a  suspected  child  to  the 
test  by  setting  it  to  grasp  a  viper — as  he,  Dereham,  when 
a  child,  grasped  one  of  the  vipers  of  Norman  Cross. 

*  The   gypsies,'  said   Dereham,  *  always    believed    me 


The  Vipers  of  Norman  Cross  105 

to  be  a  Romany.  But  surely  you  are  not  a  Romany 
Rye  ? ' 

*  No,'  I  said,  *  but  I  am  a  student  of  folk-lore  ;  and 
besides,  as  it  has  been  my  fortune  to  see  every  kind  of  life 
in  England,  high  and  low,  I  could  not  entirely  neglect 
the  Romanies,  could  I  ?  ' 

*  I   should    think    not,'   said    Dereham    indignantly. 

*  But  I  hope  you  don't  know  the  literary  class  among  the 
rest.' 

*  Gordon  is  my  only  link  to  that  dark  world,'  I  said, 

*  and  even  you  don't  object  to  Gordon.  I  am  purer 
than  he,  purer  than  you,  from  the  taint  of  printers' 
ink.' 

He  laughed.     *  Who  are  you  ?  ' 

*  The  very  question  I  have  been  asking  myself  ever 
since  I  was  a  child  in  short  frocks,'  I  said,  *  and  have  never 
yet  found  an  answer.  But  Gordon  agrees  with  me  that 
no  well-bred  soul  should  embarrass  itself  with  any  such 
troublesome  query.' 

This  gave  a  chance  to  Gordon,  who  in  such  local 
reminiscences  as  these  had  been  able  to  take  no  part. 
The  humorous  mystery  of  Man's  personality  had  often 
been  a  subject  of  joke  between  him  and  me  in  many  a 
ramble  in  the  Park  and  elsewhere.  At  once  he  threw 
himself  into  a  strain  of  whimsical  philosophy  which 
partly  amused  and  partly  vexed  Dereham,  who  stood 
waiting  to  return  to  the  subject  of  the  gypsies  and  East 
Anglia. 

'  You  are  an  Englishman  ?  '  said  Dereham. 

*  Not  only  an  Englishman,  but  an  East  Englishman,' 
I  said,  using  a  phrase  of  his  own  in  one  of  his  books — '  if 
not  a  thorough  East  Anglian,  an  East  Midlander ;  who, 
you  will  admit,  is  nearly  as  good.' 

*  Nearly,'  said  Dereham, 


io6  George  Borrow 

And  when  I  went  on  to  tell  him  that  I  once  used  to 
drive  a  genuine  '  Shales  mare,'  a  descendant  of  that  same 
famous  Norfolk  trotter  who  could  trot  fabulous  miles  an 
hour,  to  whom  he  with  the  Norfolk  farmers  raised  his 
hat  in  reverence  at  the  Norwich  horse  fair  ;  and  when 
I  promised  to  show  him  a  portrait  of  this  same  East 
Anglian  mare  with  myself  behind  her  in  a  dogcart — an 
East  Anglian  dogcart ;  when  I  praised  the  stinging  salt- 
ness  of  the  sea  water  off  Yarmouth,  Lowestoft,  and 
Cromer,  the  quality  which  makes  it  the  best,  the  most 
buoyant,  the  most  delightful  of  all  sea-water  to 
swim  in;  when  I  told  him  that  the  only  English  river 
in  which  you  could  see  reflected  the  rainbow  he  loved 
was  *  the  glassy  Ouse  '  of  East  Anglia,  and  the  only  place 
in  England  where  you  could  see  it  reflected  in  the  wet 
sand  was  the  Norfolk  coast ;  and  when  I  told  him  a  good 
many  things  showing  that  I  was  in  very  truth,  not  only 
an  Englishman,  but  an  East  Englishman,  my  conquest 
of  Dereham  was  complete,  and  from  that  moment  we 
became  friends. 

Gordon  meanwhile  stood  listening  to  the  rooks  in 
the  distance.  He  turned  and  asked  Dereham  whether  he 
had  never  noticed  a  similarity  between  the  kind  of  muffled 
rattling  roar  made  by  the  sea  : waves  upon  a  distant 
pebbly  beach  and  the  sound  of  a  large  rookery  in  the  dis- 
tance. 

*  It  is  on  sand  alone,'  said  Dereham,  *  that  the  sea 
strikes  its  true  music — Norfolk  sand  ;  a  rattle  is  not 
music' 

'  The  best  of  the  sea's  lutes,'  I  said,  '  is  made  by  the 
sands  of  Cromer.' " 

These   famous  walks  with  Borrow  (or  Dereham,  as  he 
s  called  in  the  above  quotation)  in  Richmond  Park  and 


'  Amazonian  Sinfi  '  1 07 

the  neighbourhood,  have    been  thus  described  hy  the 

*  Gordon '    of    the    story    in    one    of    the    sonnets    in 

*  The  New  Day  '  :— 

And  he  the  walking  lord  of  gipsy  lore  ! 

How  often  'mid  the  deer  that  grazed  the  park, 
Or  in  the  fields  and  heath  and  windy  moor, 

Made  musical  with  many  a  soaring  lark, 
Have  we  not  held  brisk  commune  with  him  there, 

While  Lavengro,  there  towering  by  your  side. 
With  rose  complexion  and  bright  silvery  hair, 

Would  stop  amid  his  swift  and  lounging  stride 
To  tell  the  legends  of  the  fading  race — 

As  at  the  summons  of  his  piercing  glance. 
Its  story  peopling  his  brown  eyes  and  face. 

While  you  called  up  that  pendant  of  romance 
To  Petulengro  with  his  boxing  glory, 
Your  Amazonian  Sinfi's  noble  story  ! 

In  the  *  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  '  and  in  Chambers' 

*  Cyclopaedia  of  English  Literature,'  and  scattered 
through  scores  of  articles  in  the  *  Athenaeum,'  I  find 
descriptions  of  Borrow  and  allusions  to  him  without 
number.  They  afford  absolutely  the  only  portrait  of 
that  wonderful  man  that  exists  or  is  ever  likely  to  exist. 
But,  of  course,  it  is  quite  impossible  for  me  to  fill  my 
pages  with  Borrow  when  there  are  so  many  more  im- 
portant figures  waiting  to  be  introduced.  Still,  I  must 
find  room  for  the  most  brilliant  little  Borrow  scene  of  all, 
for  it  will  flush  these  pages  with  a  colour  which  I  feel 
they  need.  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has  been  described  as  the 
most  picturesque  of  all  living  writers,  whether  in  verse 
or  in  prose,  and  it  is  not  for  me  to  gainsay  that  judgment ; 
but  never,  I  think,  is  he  so  picturesque  as  when  he  is  writ- 
ing about  Borrow. 

I  am  not  quite  clear  as  to  where  the  following  picture  of 


io8  George  Borrow 

gypsy  life  is  to  be  localized  ;  but  the  scenery  seems  to  be 
that  of  the  part  of  England  where  East  Anglia  and  the 
Midlands  join.  It  adds  interest  to  the  incident  to  know 
that  the  beautiful  gypsy  girl  was  the  prototype  of  Rhona 
Boswell,  and  that  Dereham  is  George  Borrow.  This 
also  is  a  chapter  from  the  unpublished  story  before 
mentioned,  which  was  afterwards  modified  to  be  used  in 
an  introductory  essay  to  another  of  Borrow's  books : — 

"It  was  in  the  late  summer,  just  before  the  trees  were 
clothed  with  what  Dereham  called  *  gypsy  gold,'  and 
the  bright  green  of  the  foliage  showed  scarcely  a  touch 
of  bronze — at  that  very  moment,  indeed,  when  the  spirits 
of  all  the  wild  flowers  that  have  left  the  commons  and 
the  hedgerows  seem  to  come  back  for  an  hour  and  mingle 
their  half-forgotten  perfumes  with  the  new  breath  of 
calamint,  ground  ivy,  and  pimpernel.  Dereham  gave  me 
as  hearty  a  greeting  as  so  shy  a  man  could  give.  He  told 
me  that  he  was  bound  for  a  certain  camp  of  gryengroes, 
old  friends  of  his  in  his  wandering  days.  In  conversation 
I  reminded  him  of  our  previous  talk,  and  I  told  him  I 
chanced  at  that  very  moment  to  have  in  my  pocket  a 
copy  of  the  volume  of  Matthew  Arnold  in  which  appears 
*  The  Scholar-Gypsy.'  Dereham  said  he  well  remem- 
bered my  directing  his  attention  to  *  The  Scholar-Gypsy.' 
After  listening  attentively  to  it,  Dereham  declared  that 
there  was  scarcely  any  latter-day  poetry  worth  read- 
ing, and  also  that,  whatever  the  merits  of  Matthew 
Arnold's  poem  might  be,  from  any  supposed  artistic 
point  of  view,  it  showed  that  Arnold  had  no  conception 
of  the  Romany  temper,  and  that  no  gypsy  could  sympa- 
thise with  it,  or  even  understand  its  motive  in  the  least 
degree,  I  challenged  this,  contending  that  howsoever 
Arnold's  classic  language    might   soar   above   a   gypsy's 


The  Hawk  and  the  Magpie  109 

intelligence,  the  motive  was  so  clearly  developed  that 
the  most  illiterate  person  could  grasp  it. 

*  I  wish,'  said  Dereham,  *  you  would  come  with  me 
to  the  camp  and  try  the  poem  upon  the  first  intelligent 
gypsy  woman  we  meet  at  the  camp.  As  to  gypsy  men,' 
said  he,  *  they  are  too  prosaic  to  furnish  a  fair  test.' 

We  agreed,  and  as  we  were  walking  across  the 
country  Dereham  became  very  communicative,  and 
talked  very  volubly  upon  gentility-nonsense,  and  many 
other  pet  subjects  of  his.  I  already  knew  that  he 
was  no  lover  of  the  aristocracy  of  England,  or,  as  he 
called  them,  the  *  trumpery  great,'  although  in  other 
regards  he  was  such  a  John  Bull.  By  this  time  we  had 
proceeded  a  good  way  on  our  little  expedition.  As  we 
were  walking  along,  Dereham's  eyes,  which  were  as  long- 
sighted as  a  gypsy's,  perceived  a  white  speck  in  a  twisted 
old  hawthorn-bush  some  distance  off.  He  stopped  and 
said  :  *  At  first  I  thought  that  white  speck  in  the  bush 
was  a  piece  of  paper,  but  it's  a  magpie,' — next  to  the 
water-wagtail,  the  gypsies'  most  famous  bird.  On  going 
up  to  the  bush  we  discovered  a  magpie  couched  among 
the  leaves.  As  it  did  not  stir  at  our  approach,  I  said  to 
him  :  *  It  is  wounded — or  else  dying — or  is  it  a  tamed  bird 
escaped  from  a  cage  ?  '  *  Hawk  !  '  said  Dereham  laconi- 
cally, and  turned  up  his  face  and  gazed  into  the  sky. 
*  The  magpie  is  waiting  till  the  hawk  has  caught  his 
quarry  and  made  his  meal.  I  fancied  he  has  himself 
been  *  chivvied '  by  the  hawk,  as  the  gypsies  would 
say.' 

And  there,  sure  enough,  beneath'  one  of  the  silver 
clouds  that  speckled  the  dazzling  blue,  a  hawk — one  of 
the  kind  which  takes  its  prey  in  the  open  rather  than  in 
the  thick  woodlands — was  wheeling  up  and  up,  trying 
its  best  to  get  above  a  poor  little  lark  in  order  to  swoop  at 


1 1  o  George  Borrow 

and  devour  it.  That  the  magpie  had  seen  the  hawk  and 
had  been  a  witness  of  the  opening  of  the  tragedy  of  the 
lark  was  evident,  for  in  its  dread  of  the  common  foe  of  all 
well-intentioned  and  honest  birds,  it  had  forgotten  its 
fear  of  all  creatures  except  the  hawk.  Man,  in  such  a 
crisis  as  this,  it  looked  upon  as  a  protecting  friend. 

As  we  were  gazing  at  the  bird  a  woman's  voice  at  our 
elbows  said, — 

*  It's  lucky  to  chivvy  the  hawk  what  chivvies  a  mag- 
pie.    I  shall  stop  here  till  the  hawk's  flew  away.' 

We  turned  round,  and  there  stood  a  fine  young 
gypsy  woman,  carrying,  gypsy  fashion,  a  weakly  child 
that  in  spite  of  its  sallow  and  wasted  cheek  proclaimed 
itself  to  be  hers.  By  her  side  stood  a  young  gypsy  girl. 
She  was  beautiful — quite  remarkably  so — but  her  beauty 
was  not  of  the  typical  Romany  kind.  It  was,  as  I  after- 
wards learned,  more  like  the  beauty  of  a  Capri  girl. 

She  was  bareheaded  —  there  was  not  even  a  gypsy 
handkerchief  on  her  head — her  hair  was  not  plaited,  and 
was  not  smooth  and  glossy  like  a  gypsy  girl's  hair,  but 
flowed  thick  and  heavy  and  rippling  down  the  back  of 
her  neck  and  upon  her  shoulders.  In  the  tumbled  tresses 
glittered  certain  objects,  which  at  first  sight  seemed  to 
be  jewels.  They  were  small  dead  dragonflies,  of  the 
crimson  kind  called  *  sylphs.' 

To  Dereham  these  gypsies  were  evidently  well  known. 
The  woman  with  the  child  was  one  of  the  Boswells ;  I 
dare  not  say  what  was  her  connection,  if  any,  with  *  Bos- 
well  the  Great ' — I  mean  Sylvester  Boswell,  the  gram- 
marian and  *  well-known  and  popalated  gypsy  of  Cod- 
ling Gap,'  who,  on  a  memorable  occasion,  wrote  so  elo- 
quently about  the  superiority  of  the  gypsy  mode  of  life 
to  all  others,  '  on  the  accont  of  health,  sweetness  of  air, 
and  for  enjoying  the  pleasure  of  Nature's  life.' 


Pcrpinia*s  Chavo  1 1 1 

Dereham  told  me  in  a  whisper  that  her  name  was 
Pcrpinia,  and  that  the  other  gypsy,  the  girl  of  the  dragon- 
flies,  was  the  famous  beauty  of  the  neighbourhood — 
Rhona  Boswell,  of  whom  many  stories  had  reached  him 
with  regard  to  Percy  Aylwin,  a  relative  of  Rosamond's 
father. 

After  greeting  the  two,  Dereham  looked  at  the 
weakling  child  with  the  deepest  interest,  and  said  to  the 
mother  :  '  This  chavo  ought  not  to  look  like  that — with 
such  a  mother  as  you,  Perpinia.'  *  And  with  such  a 
daddy,  too,'  said  she.  *  Mike's  stronger  for  a  man  nor 
even  I  am  for  a  woman  ' — a  glow  of  wifely  pride  passing 
over  her  face  ;  *  and  as  to  good  looks,  it's  him  as  has  got 
the  good  looks,  not  me.  But  none  on  us  can't  make  it 
out  about  the  chavo.  He's  so  weak  and  sick  he  don't 
look  as  if  he  belonged  to  Boswell's  breed  at  all.' 

*  How  many  pipes  of  tobacco  do  you  smoke  in  a 
day  ?  '  said  I,  looking  at  the  great  black  cutty  pipe  pro- 
truding from  Perpinia's  finely  cut  lips,  and  seeming 
strangely  out  of  place  there. 

*  Can't  say,'  said  she,  laughing. 

*  About  as  many  as  she  can  afford  to  buy,'  inter- 
rupted *  the  beauty  of  the  Ouse,'  as  Rhona  Boswell  was 
called.  *  That's  all.  Mike  don't  like  her  a-smokin'. 
He  says  it  makes  her  look  like  a  old  Londra  Irish  woman 
in  Common  Garding  Market.' 

*  You  must  not  smoke  another  pipe,'  said  I  to  the 
mother — '  not  another  pipe  till  the  child  leaves  the  breast.' 

*  What  ?  '  said  Perpinia  defiantly.  '  As  if  I  could  live 
without  my  pipe  !  ' 

'  Fancy  Pep  a-living  without  her  baccy ! '  laughed 
Rhona. 

'  Your  child  can't  live  with  it,'  said  I  to  Perpinia. 
*  That  pipe  of  yours  is  full  of  a  poison  called  nicotine.' 


112  George  Borrow 

*  Nick  what  ?  '  said  Rhona,  laughing.  *  That*s  a  new 
kind  of  nick.     Why,  you  smoke  yourself ! ' 

*  Nicotine,'  said  I.  *  And  the  first  part  of  Pep's  body 
that  the  poison  gets  into  is  her  breast,  and ' 

*  Gets  into  my  burk,'  ^  said  Perpinia.  *  Get  along  wi* 
ye." 

'  Yes.' 

*  Do  it  pison  Pep's  milk  ? '  said  Rhona. 

*  Yes.' 

*  That  ain't  true,'  said  Perpinia — '  can't  be  true.' 

*  It  is  true,'  said  I.  *  If  you  don't  give  up  that  pipe 
for  a  time,  the  child  will  die,  or  else  be  a  ricketty  thing  all 
his  life.  If  you  do  give  it  up,  it  will  grow  up  to  be  as  fine 
a  gypsy  as  ever  your  husband  can  be.' 

'  Chavo  agin  pipe.  Pep  ! '  said  Rhona. 

*  Lend  me  your  pipe,  Perpinia,'  said  Dereham,  in  that 
hail-fellow-well-met  tone  of  his,  which  he  reserved  for 
the  Romanies — a  tone  which  no  Romany  could  ever 
resist.  And  he  took  it  gently  from  the  woman's  lips. 
*  Don't  smoke  any  more  till  I  come  to  the  camp  and  see 
the  chavo  again.' 

*  He  be's  a  good  friend  to  the  Romanies,'  said  Rhona, 
in  an  appeasing  tone. 

*  That's  true,'  said  the  woman ;  '  but  he's  no  business 
to  take  my  pipe  out  o'  my  mouth  for  all  that.' 

She  soon  began  to  smile  again,  however,  and  let 
Dereham  retain  the  pipe.  Dereham  and  I  then 
moved  away  towards  the  dusty  high-road  leading  to  the 
camp,  and  were  joined  by  Rhona.  Perpinia  remained, 
keeping  guard  over  the  magpie  that  was  to  bring  luck  to 
the  sinking  child. 

It  was  determined  now  that    Rhona    was    the   very 

'  Bosom. 


Rhona  Baswell's  Beauty  i  r  5 

person  to  be  used  as  the  test-critic  of  the  Romany  mind 
upon  Arnold's  poem,  for  she  was  exceptionally  intelli- 
gent. So  instead  of  going  to  the  camp,  the  oddly  assorted 
little  party  of  three  struck  across  the  ferns,  gorse,  and 
heather  towards '  Kingfisher  brook,'  and  when  we  reached 
it  we  sat  down  on  a  fallen  tree. 

Nothing,  as  afterwards  I  came  to  know,  delights  a 
gypsy  girl  so  much,  in  whatever  country  she  may  be 
born,  as  to  listen  to  a  story  either  told  or  read  to  her, 
and  when  I  pulled  my  book  from  my  pocket  the  gypsy 
girl  began  to  clap  her  hands.  Her  anticipation  of  enjoy- 
ment sent  over  her  face  a  warm  glow. 

Her  complexion,  though  darker  than  an  English 
girl's,  was  rather  lighter  than  an  ordinary  gypsy's.  Her 
eyes  were  of  an  indescribable  hue ;  but  an  artist  who  has 
since  then  painted  her  portrait  for  me,  described  it  as  a 
mingling  of  pansy  purple  and  dark  tawny.  The  pupils 
were  so  large  that,  being  set  in  the  somewhat  almond- 
shaped  and  long-eyelashed  lids  of  her  race,  they  were 
partly  curtained  both  above  and  below,  and  this  had  the 
peculiar  effect  of  making  the  eyes  seem  always  a  little 
contracted  and  just  about  to  smile.  The  great  size  and 
deep  richness  of  the  eyes  made  the  straight  little  nose 
seem  smaller  than  it  really  was ;  they  also  lessened  the 
apparent  size  of  the  mouth,  which,  red  as  a  rosebud, 
looked  quite  small  until  she  laughed,  when  the  white 
teeth  made  quite  a  wide  glitter. 

Before  three  lines  of  the  poem  had  been  read  she 
jumped  up  and  cried,  '  Look  at  the  Devil's  needles ! 
They're  come  to  sew  my  eyes  up  for  killing  their 
brothers.' 

And  surely  enough  a  gigantic  dragon-fly,  whose  body- 
armour  of  sky  blue  and  jet  black,  and  great  lace-woven 
wings,  shining  like  a  rainbow  gauze,  caught  the  sun  as  he 

W.-D.  8 


114  George  Borrow 

swept  dazzling  by,  did  really  seem  to  be  attracted  either 
by  the  wings  of  his  dead  brothers  or  by  the  lights  shed 
from  the  girl's  eyes. 

*  I  dussn't  set  here,'  said  she.  *  Us  Romanies  call  this 
*  Dragon-fly  Brook.'  And  that's  the  king  o'  the  dragon- 
flies  :  he  lives  here.' 

As  she  rose  she  seemed  to  be  surrounded  by  dragon- 
flies  of  about  a  dozen  different  species  of  all  sizes,  some 
crimson,  some  bronze,  some  green  and  gold,  whirling  and 
dancing  round  her  as  if  they  meant  to  justify  their  Ro- 
many name  and  sew  up  the  girl's  eyes. 

*  The  Romanies  call  them  the  Devil's  needles,'  said 
Dereham ;  *  their  business  is  to  sew  up  pretty  girls' 
eyes. 

In  a  second,  however,  they  all  vanished,  and  the  girl 
after  a  while  sat  down  again  to  listen  to  the  *  lil,'  as  she 
called  the  story. 

Glanville's  prose  story,  upon  which  Arnold's  poem 
is  based,  was  read  first.  In  this  Rhona  was  much  inter- 
ested. But  when  I  went  on  to  read  to  her  Arnold's 
poem,  though  her  eyes  flashed  now  and  then  at  the  lovely 
bits  of  description — for  the  country  about  Oxford  is 
quite  remarkably  like  the  country  in  which  she  was  born 
— she  looked  sadly  bewildered,  and  then  asked  to  have  it 
all  read  again.  After  a  second  reading  she  said  in  a  medi- 
tative way :  '  Can't  make  out  what  the  lil's  all  about — 
seems  all  about  nothink  !  Seems  to  me  that  the  pretty 
sights  what  makes  a  Romany  fit  to  jump  out  o'  her  skin 
for  joy  makes  this  'ere  gorgio  want  to  cry.  What  a  rum 
lot  gorgios  is  surely  !  ' 

And  then  she  sprang  up  and  ran  off  towards  the 
camp  with  the  agility  of  a  greyhound,  turning  round 
every  few  moments,  pirouetting  and  laughing  aloud. 


A  Letter  Box  on  the  Broads 

(From   an   Oil    Painting  at  'The   Pines') 


Photo.  Poole,  Putney 


The  Last  of  Borrow  115 

*  Let's  go  to  the  camp  ! '  said  Dereham.  '  That  was 
all   true  about  the  nicotine — was  it  not  ?  ' 

*  Partly,  I  think,'  said  I,  '  but  not  being  a  medical 
man  I  must  not  be  too  emphatic.  If  it  is  true  it  ought 
to  be  a  criminal  offence  for  any  woman  to  smoke  in  excess 
while  she  is  suckling  a  child.' 

'  Say  it  ought  to  be  a  criminal  offence  for  a  woman 
to  smoke  at  all,'  growled  Dereham.  '  Fancy  kissing  a 
woman's  mouth  that  smelt  of  stale  tobacco — pheugh  !  '  " 

After  giving  these  two  delightful  descriptions  of  Bor- 
row and  his  environment,  I  will  now  quote  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  description  of  their  last  meeting  : — 

*  The  last  time  I  ever  saw  Borrow  was  shortly  before 
he  left  London  to  live  in  the  country.  It  was,  I  remem- 
ber well,  on  Waterloo  Bridge,  where  I  had  stopped  to 
gaze  at  a  sunset  of  singular  and  striking  splendour,  whose 
gorgeous  clouds  and  ruddy  mists  were  reeling  and  boiling 
over  the  West  End.  Borrow  came  up  and  stood  leaning 
over  the  parapet,  entranced  by  the  sight,  as  well  he 
might  be.  Like  most  people  born  in  flat  districts,  he 
had  a  passion  for  sunsets.  Turner  could  not  have  painted 
that  one,  I  think,  and  certainly  my  pen  could  not  de- 
scribe it ;  for  the  London  smoke  was  flushed  by  the 
sinking  sun  and  had  lost  its  dunness,  and,  reddening 
every  moment  as  it  rose  above  the  roofs,  steeples,  and 
towers,  it  went  curling  round  the  sinking  sun  in  a  rosy 
vapour,  leaving,  however,  just  a  segment  of  a  golden 
rim,  which  gleamed  as  dazzlingly  as  in  the  thinnest  and 
clearest  air — a  peculiar  effect  which  struck  Borrow 
deeply.  I  never  saw  such  a  sunset  before  or  since,  not 
even  on  Waterloo  Bridge  ;  and  from  its  association  with 
'  the  last  of  Borrow  '  I  shall  never  forget  it.' 


ii6  George  Borrow 

A    TALK    ON    WATERLOO    BRIDGE 

The  Last  Sight  of  George  Borrow 

We  talked  of  '  Children  of  the  Open  Air,' 
Who  once  on  hill  and  valley  lived  aloof, 
Loving  the  sun,  the  wind,  the  sweet  reproof 

Of  storms,  and  all  that  makes  the  fair  earth  fair. 

Till,  on  a  day,  across  the  mystic  bar 

Of  moonrise,  came  the  '  Children  of  the  Roof,' 
Who  find  no  balm  'neath  evening's  rosiest  woof, 

Nor  dews  of  peace  beneath  the  Morning  Star. 

We  looked  o'er  London  where  men  wither  and  choke, 
Roofed  in,  poor  souls,  renouncing  stars  and  skies, 
And  lore  of  woods  and  wild  wind-prophecies — 
Yea,  every  voice  that  to  their  fathers  spoke  : 
And  sweet  it  seemed  to  die  ere  bricks  and  smoke 
Leave  never  a  meadow  outside  Paradise. 

While  the  noble  music  of  this  double  valediction  in 
poetry  and  prose  is  sounding  in  our  ears,  my  readers  and 
I,  '  with  wandering  steps  and  slow,'  may  also  fitly  take 
our  reluctant  leave  of  George  Borrow. 


chapter   X 

THE    ACTED    DRAMA 

IT  was  during  the  famous  evenings  in  Dr.  Marston's 
house  at  Chalk  Farm  that  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  was 
for  the  first  time  brought  into  contact  with  the  theatrical 
world.  I  do  not  know  that  he  was  ever  closely  con- 
nected with  that  world,  but  in  the  set  in  which  he 
specially  moved  at  this  time  he  seems  to  have  been 
almost  the  only  one  who  was  a  regular  playgoer  and  first- 
nighter,  for  Rossetti's  playgoing  days  were  nearly  over, 
and  Mr.  Swinburne  never  was  a  playgoer.  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  still  takes,  as  may  be  seen  in  his  sonnet  to 
Ellen  Terry,  which  I  shall  quote,  a  deep  interest  in 
the  acted  drama  and  in  the  acting  profession,  although 
of  late  years  he  has  not  been  much  seen  at  the 
theatres.  When,  after  a  while,  he  and  Minto  were 
at  work  on  the  '  Examiner '  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
occasionally,  although  I  think  rarely,  wrote  a  theatrical 
critique  for  that  paper.  The  only  one  I  have  had  an 
opportunity  of  reading  is  upon  Miss  Neilson — not  the 
Miss  Julia  Neilson  who  is  so  much  admired  in  our 
day  ;  but  the  powerful,  dark-eyed  creole-looking  beauty, 
Lilian  Adelaide  Neilson,  who,  after  being  a  mill-hand 
and  a  barmaid,  became  a  famous  tragedian,  and  made 
a  great  impression  in  Juliet,  and  in  impassioned  poetical 
parts  of  that  kind.  The  play  in  which  she  appeared  on 
that  occasion  was  a  play  by  Tom  Taylor,  called  *  Anne 

117 


1 1 8  The  Acted  Drama 

Boleyn,'  in  which  Miss  Neilson  took  the  part  of  the 
heroine.  It  was  given  at  the  Haymarket  in  Feb- 
ruary 1876.  I  do  not  remember  reading  any  criticism 
in  which  so  much  admirable  writing — acute,  brilliant,  and 
learned — was  thrown  away  upon  so  mediocre  a  play. 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  remarks  upon  Miss  Neilson's  acting 
were,  however,  not  thrown  away,  for  the  subject  seems 
to  have  been  fully  worthy  of  them  ;  and  I,  who  love  the 
acted  drama  myself,  regret  that  the  actress's  early  death 
in  1880,  robbed  me  of  the  pleasure  of  seeing  her.  She 
was  one  of  the  actresses  whom  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  used  to 
meet  on  Sunday  evenings  at  Marston's,  and  I  have  heard 
him  say  that  her  genius  was  as  apparent  in  her  conversation 
as  in  her  acting.  Miss  Corkran  has  recently  sketched  one 
of  these  meetings,  and  has  given  us  a  graphic  picture  of 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  there,  contrasting  his  personal  appear- 
ance with  that  of  Mr.  Swinburne.  They  must  indeed 
have  been  delightful  gatherings  to  a  lover  of  the  theatre, 
for  there  Miss  Neilson,  Miss  Glyn,  Miss  Ada  Cavendish, 
and  others  were  to  be  met — met  in  the  company  of 
Irving,  Sothern,  Hermann  Vezin,  and  many  another 
famous  actor. 

That  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  had  a  peculiar  insight  into 
histrionic  art  was  shown  by  what  occurred  on  his  very 
first  appearance  at  the  Marston  evenings,  whither  he 
was  taken  by  his  friend.  Dr.  Gordon  Hake,  who  used  to 
tell  the  following  story  with  great  humour ;  and  Rossetti 
also  used  to  repeat  it  with  still  greater  gusto.  I  am 
here  again  indebted  to  his  son,  Mr.  Hake — who  was  also  a 
friend  of  Dr.  Marston,  Ada  Cavendish,  and  others — 
for  interesting  reminiscences  of  these  Marston  even- 
ings which  have  never  been  published.  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  at  that  time  was,  of  course,  quite  unknown, 
except  in  a  very  small  circle  of  literary  men  and  artists. 


The  Origin  of  'The  Bells'  119 

Three  or  four  dramatic  critics,  several  poets,  and  two 
actresses,  one  of  whom  was  Ada  Cavendish,  were  talking 
about  Irving  in  *  The  Bells,'  which  was  a  dramatization 
by  a  writer  named  Leopold  Lewis  of  the  *  Juif  Polonais '  of 
Erckmann-Chatrian.  They  were  all  enthusiastically 
extolling  Irving's  acting;  and  this  is  not  surprising,  as  all 
will  say  who  have  seen  him  in  the  part.  But  while  some 
were  praising  the  play,  others  were  running  it  down. 
"  What  I  say,"  said  one  of  the  admirers,  "  is  that  the 
motif  of  '  The  Bells, '  the  use  of  the  idea  of  a  sort  of 
embodied  conscience  to  tell  the  audience  the  story  and 
bring  about  the  catastrophe,  is  the  newest  that  has 
appeared  in  drama  or  fiction — it  is  entirely  original." 

"  Not  entirely,  I  think,"  said  a  voice  which,  until  that 
evening,  was  new  in  the  circle.  They  turned  round  to 
listen  to  what  the  dark-eyed  young  stranger,  tanned  by 
the  sun  to  a  kind  of  gypsy  colour,  who  looked  Hke 
William  Black,  quietly  smoking  his  cigarette,  had  to  say. 
"  Not  entirely  new  ?  "  said  one.  "  Who  was  the  origin- 
ator, then,  of  the  idea  ?  " 

"  I  can't  tell  you  that,"  said  the  interrupting  voice, 
"  for  it  occurs  in  a  very  old  Persian  story,  and  it  was 
evidently  old  even  then.  But  Erckmann-Chatrian  took 
it  from  a  much  later  story-teller.  They  adapted  it  from 
Chamisso." 

"  Is  that  the  author  of  '  Peter  Schlemihl '  ?  "  said 
one. 

"  Yes,"  replied  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  "  but  Chamisso 
was  a  poet  before  he  was  a  prose  writer,  and  he  wrote 
a  rhymed  story  in  which  the  witness  of  a  murder  was 
the  sunrise,  and  at  dawn  the  criminal  was  affected  in  the 
same  way  that  Matthias  is  affected  by  the  sledge  bells. 
The  idea  that  the  sensorium,  in  an  otherwise  perfectly 
sane  brain,  can  translate  sights  and  sound  into  accusations 


I20  The  Acted  Drama 

of  a  crime  is,  of  course,  perfectly  true,  and  in  the  play  it 
is  wonderfully  given  by  Irving." 

"  Well,"  said  Dr.  Marston,  "  that  is  the  best  account 
I  have  yet  heard  of  the  origin  of  *  The  Bells.'  " 

Then  the  voice  of  one  of  the  disparagers  of  the  play 
said :  "  There  you  are  !  The  very  core  of  Erckmann- 
Chatrian's  story  and  Lewis's  play  has  been  stolen  and 
spoilt  from  another  writer.  The  acting,  as  I  say,  is 
superb — the  play  is  rot." 

"  Well,  I  do  not  think  so,"  said  Mr.  Watts-Dunton. 
*'  I  think  it  a  new  and  a  striking  play." 

"  Will  you  give  your  reasons,  sir  ?  "  said  Dr.  Marston, 
in  that  old-fashioned  courtly  way  which  was  one  of  his 
many  charms. 

"  Certainly,"  said  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  "  if  it  will  be 
of  any  interest.  You  recollect  Coleridge's  remarks  upon 
expectation  and  surprise  in  drama.  I  think  it  a  striking 
play  because  I  cannot  recall  any  play  in  which  the  entire 
source  of  interest  is  that  of  pure  expectation  unadulter- 
ated by  surprise.  From  the  opening  dialogue,  before 
ever  the  burgomaster  appears,  the  audience  knows  that 
a  murder  has  been  committed,  and  that  the  murderer 
must  be  the  burgomaster,  and  yet  the  audience  is  kept 
in  breathless  suspense  through  pure  expectation  as  to 
whether  or  not  the  crime  will  be  brought  home  to  him, 
and  if  brought  home  to  him,  how." 

"  Well,"  said  the  voice  of  one  of  the  admirers  of  the 
play,  "  that  is  the  best  criticism  of  "  The  Bells '  I  have 
yet  heard."  After  this  the  conversation  turned  upon 
Jefferson's  acting  of  Rip  Van  Winkle,  and  many  admir- 
able remarks  fell  from  a  dozen  lips.  When  there  was  a 
pause  in  these  criticisms.  Dr.  Marston  turned  to  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  and  said,  "  Have  you  seen  Jefferson  in 
'  Rip  van  Winkle,'  sir  ?  " 


Jefferson  in   Rip   Van  Winkle  121 

"  Yes,  indeed,"  was  the  reply,  "  many  times ;  and  I 
hope  to  see  it  many  more  times.  It  is  wonderful.  I 
think  it  lucky  that  I  have  been  able  to  see  the  great 
exemplar  of  what  may  be  called  the  Garrick  type  of 
actor,  and  the  great  exemplar  of  what  may  be  called 
the  Edmund  Kean  type  of  actor." 

On  being  asked  what  he  meant  by  this  classification, 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  launched  out  into  one  of  those  wide- 
sweeping  but  symmetrical  monologues  of  criticism  in 
which  beginning,  middle,  and  end,  were  as  perfectly 
marked  as  though  the  improvization  had  been  a  well- 
considered  essay — the  subject  being  the  style  of  acting 
typified  by  Garrick  and  the  style  of  acting  typified  by 
Robson.  As  this  same  idea  runs  through  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  criticism  of  Got  in  '  Le  Roi  s' Amuse  '  (which 
I  shall  quote  later),  there  is  no  need  to  dwell  upon  it 
here. 

"  As  an  instance,"  he  said,  "  of  Jefferson's  supreme 
power  in  this  line  of  acting,  one  might  refer  to  Act  II.  of 
the  play,  where  Rip  mounts  the  Catskill  Mountains  in 
the  company  of  the  goblins.  Rip  talks  with  the  gob- 
lins one  after  the  other,  and  there  seems  to  be  a  dramatic 
dialogue  going  on.  It  is  not  till  the  curtain  falls  that 
the  audience  realizes  that  every  word  spoken  during  that 
act  came  from  the  lips  of  Rip,  so  entirely  have  Jeffer- 
son's facial  expression  and  intonation  dramatized  each 
goblin." 

Between  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  and  our  great  Shakes- 
pearean actress,  Ellen  Terry,  there  has  been  an  affec- 
tionate friendship  running  over  nearly  a  quarter  of  a 
century.  This  is  not  at  all  surprising  to  one  who  knows 
Miss  Terry's  high  artistic  taste  and  appreciation  of 
poetry.  Among  the  poems  expressing  that  friendship, 
none  is  more  pleasing  than  the  sonnet  that  appeared  in 


122  The  Acted  Drama 

the  *  Magazine  of  Art '  to  which  Mr.  Bernard  Partridge 
contributed  his  superb  drawing  of  Miss  Terry  in  the  part 
of  Queen  Katherine.  It  is  entitled,  *  Queen  Katherine  : 
on  seeing  Miss  Ellen  Terry  as  Katherine  in  King 
Henry  VIII ' :— 

Seeking  a  tongue  for  tongueless  shadow-land, 

Has  Katherine's  soul  come  back  with  power  to  quell 
A  sister-soul  incarnate,  and  compel 

Its  bodily  voice  to  speak  by  Grief's  command  ? 

Or  is  it  Katherine's  self  returns  to  stand 
As  erst  she  stood  defying  Wolsey's  spell — 
Returns  with  those  vile  wrongs  she  fain  would  tell 

Which  memory  bore  to  Eden's  amaranth  strand  ? 

Or  is  it  thou,  dear  friend — this  Queen,  whose  face 
The  salt  of  many  tears  hath  scarred  and  stung  ? — 
Can  it  be  thou,  whose  genius,  ever  young. 

Lighting  the  body  with  the  spirit's  grace. 

Is  loved  by  England — ^loved  by  all  the  race 
Round  all  the  world  enlinked  by  Shakespeare's  tongue  ! 

With  one  exception  I  do  not  find  any  dramatic  criti- 
cisms by  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  in  the  *  Athenaeum.'  In- 
deed, I  should  not  expect  to  find  him  trenching  upon 
the  domain  of  the  greatest  dramatic  critic  of  our  time, 
Mr.  Joseph  Knight.  No  one  speaks  with  greater  ad- 
miration of  Mr.  Knight  than  his  friend  of  thirty  years' 
standing,  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  himself ;  and  when  an 
essay  on  '  King  John  '  was  required  for  the  series  of 
Shakespeare  essays  to  accompany  Mr.  Edwin  Abbey's 
famous  illustrations  in  '  Harper's  Magazine,'  it  was 
Mr.  Knight  whom  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  invited  to  dis- 
cuss this  important  play.  The  exception  I  allude  to  is 
the  criticism  of  Victor  Hugo's  *  Le  Roi  s'Amuse,'  which 
appeared  in  the  '  Athenaeum  '  of  December  2,  1882. 

The  way  in  which  it  came  about  that  Mr.  Watts- 


Le   Roi  s' Amuse  123 

Dunton  undertook  for  the  *  Athenseum '  so  important 
a  piece  of  dramatic  criticism  is  interesting.  In  1882 
M.  Vacquerie,  the  editor  of  *  Le  Rappel,'  a  relative 
of  Hugo's,  and  a  great  friend  of  Mr.  Swinburne  and 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  together  with  other  important 
members  of  the  Hugo  cenacle,  determined  to  get  up  a 
representation  of  *  Le  Roi  s' Amuse '  on  the  jubilee 
of  its  first  representation,  since  when  it  had  never 
been  acted.  Vacquerie  sent  two  fauteuils,  one  for 
Mr.  Swinburne  and  one  for  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  ;  and 
the  two  poets  were  present  at  that  memorable  repre- 
sentation. Long  before  the  appointed  day  there  was  on 
the  Continent,  from  Paris  to  St.  Petersburg,  an  unpre- 
cedented demand  for  seats ;  for  it  was  felt  that  this  was 
the  most  interesting  dramatic  event  that  had  occurred 
for  fifty  years. 

Consequently  the  editor  of  the  *  Athenaeum '  for 
once  invited  his  chief  literary  contributor  to  fill  the  post 
which  the  dramatic  editor  of  the  paper,  Mr.  Joseph 
Knight,  generously  yielded  to  him  for  the  occasion,  and 
the  following  article  appeared  : — 

"  Paris,  November  23,  1882. 
"  I  felt  that  the  revival,  at  the  Theatre  Fran9ais,  of 
*  Le  Roi  s'Amuse,'  on  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  its  original 
production,  must  be  one  of  the  most  interesting  literary 
events  of  our  time,  and  so  I  found  it  to  be.  Victor  Hugo 
was  there,  sitting  with  his  arms  folded  across  his  breast, 
calm  but  happy,  in  a  stage  box.  He  expressed  himself 
satisfied  and  even  delighted  with  the  acting.  The 
poet's  appearance  was  fuller  of  vitality  and  more  Olymp- 
ian than  ever.  Between  the  acts  he  left  the  theatre  and 
walked  about  in  the  square,  leaning  on  the  arm  of  his 
illustrious  poet  friend  and  family  connection,  Auguste 


124  The  Acted  Drama 

Vacquerie,  to  whose  kindness  I  was  indebted  for  a  seat 
in  the  fauteuils  d'orchestre,  which  otherwise  I  should 
have  found  to  be  quite  unattainable,  so  unprecedented 
was  the  demand  for  places.  It  is  said  that  a  thousand 
francs  were  given  for  a  seat.  Never  before  was  seen,  even 
in  a  French  theatre,  an  audience  so  brilliant  and  so  illus- 
trious. I  did  not,  however,  see  any  English  face  I  knew 
save  that  of  Mr.  Swinburne,  who  at  the  end  of  the  third 
act  might  have  been  seen  talking  to  Hugo  in  his  box. 
Among  the  most  appreciative  and  enthusiastic  of  those 
who  assisted  at  the  representation  was  the  French  poet, 
who  perhaps  in  the  nineteenth  century  stands  next 
to  Hugo  for  intellectual  massiveness,  M.  Leconte  de 
Lisle.  And  I  should  say  that  every  French  poet  and 
indeed  every  man  of  eminence  was  there. 

Considering  the  extraordinary  nature  of  the  piece, 
the  cast  was  perhaps  as  satisfactory  as  could  have  been 
hoped  for.  Fond  as  is  M.  Hugo  of  spectacular  effects, 
and  even  of  coups  de  theatre,  no  other  dramatist  gives 
so  little  attention  as  he  to  the  idiosyncrasies  of  actors.  It 
is  easy  to  imagine  that  Shakespeare  in  writing  his  lines 
was  not  always  unmindful  of  an  actor  like  Burbage. 
But  in  depicting  Triboulet,  Hugo  must  have  thought  as 
little  about  the  specialities  of  Ligier,  who  took  the  part 
on  the  first  night  in  1832,  as  of  the  future  Got,  who  was 
to  take  it  on  the  second  night  in  1882.  And  the  same 
may  be  said  of  Blanche  in  relation  to  the  two  actresses 
who  successively  took  that  part.  This  is,  I  think,  exactly 
the  way  in  which  a  dramatist  should  work.  The  con- 
trary method  is  not  more  ruinous  to  drama  as  a  literary 
form  than  to  the  actor's  art.  To  write  up  to  an  actor's 
style  destroys  all  true  character-drawing ;  also  it  ends  by 
writing  up  to  the  actor's  mere  manner,  who  from  that 
moment  is,  as  an  artist,  doomed.     On  the  whole,  the 


The  Tragic  Mischief,  Circumstance      125 

performance  wanted  more  glow  and  animal  spirits.  The 
Fran9ois  I  of  M.  Mounet-Sully  was  full  of  verve,  but  this 
actor's  voice  is  so  exceedingly  rich  and  emotional  that 
the  king  seemed  more  poetic,  and  hence  more  sympa- 
thetic to  the  audience,  than  was  consistent  with  a  char- 
acter who  in  a  sense  is  held  up  as  the  villain  of  the  piece. 
The  true  villain,  here,  however,  as  in  '  Torquemada,' 
*  Notre  Dame  de  Paris,'  '  Les  Mis6rables,'  and,  indeed, 
in  all  Hugo's  characteristic  works,  is  not  an  individual  at 
all,  but  Circumstance.  Circumstance  placed  Francis,  a 
young  and  pleasure-loving  king,  over  a  licentious  court. 
Circumstance  gave  him  a  court  jester  with  a  temper 
which,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  was  peculiar  for  such  times 
as  those.  Circumstance,  acting  through  the  agency  of 
certain  dissolute  courtiers,  thrust  into  the  king's  very 
bedroom  the  girl  whom  he  loved  and  who  belonged  to  a 
class  from  whom  he  had  been  taught  to  expect  subser- 
vience of  every  kind.  The  tragic  mischief  of  the  rape 
follows  almost  as  a  necessary  consequence.  Add  to  this 
the  fact  that  Circumstance  contrives  that  the  girl 
Maguelonne,  instead  of  aiding  her  more  conscientious 
brother  in  killing  the  disguised  king  at  the  bidding  of 
'  the  client  who  pays,'  falls  unexpectedly  in  love  with 
him  ;  while  Circumstance  also  contrives  that  Blanche 
shall  be  there  ready  at  the  very  spot  at  the  very  moment 
where  and  when  she  is  imperatively  wanted  as  a  sub- 
stituted victim  ; — and  you  get  the  entire  motif  of  '  Le  Roi 
s'Amuse  ' — man  enmeshed  in  a  web  of  circumstance,  the 
motif  of  *  Notre  Dame  de  Paris,'  the  motif  of  '  Torque- 
mada,' and,  in  a  certain  deep  sense,  perhaps  the  proper 
motif  in  romantic  drama.  For  when  the  vis  matrix  of 
classic  drama,  the  supernatural  interference  of  conscious 
Destiny,  was  no  longer  available  to  the  artist,  something 
akin   to   it — something  nobler  and  more  powerful  than 


126  The  Acted  Drama 

the  stage  villain — was  found  to  be  necessary  to  save 
tragedy  from  sinking  into  melodrama.  And  this  ex- 
plains so  many  of  the  complexities  of  Shakespeare. 

In  the  dramas  of  Victor  Hugo,  however,  the  romantic 
temper  has  advanced  quite  as  far  as  it  ought  to  advance 
not  only  in  the  use  of  Circumstance  as  the  final  cause  of 
the  tragic  mischief,  but  in  the  use  of  the  grotesque  in 
alliance  with  the  terrible.  The  greatest  masters  of  the 
terrible-grotesque  till  we  get  to  the  German  roman- 
ticists were  the  English  dramatists  of  the  sixteenth  and 
the  early  portion  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  of 
course  by  far  the  greatest  among  these  was  Shakespeare. 
For  the  production  of  the  effect  in  question  there  is 
nothing  comparable  to  the  scenes  in  *  Lear  '  between  the 
king  and  the  fool — scenes  which  seem  very  early  in  his 
life  to  have  struck  Hugo  more  than  anything  else  in  liter- 
ature. Outside  the  Elizabethan  dramatists,  however, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  (leaving  out  of  the  discussion 
the  great  German  masters  in  this  line)  Hugo  is  the  great- 
est worker  in  the  terrible-grotesque  that  has  appeared 
since  Burns.  I  need  only  point  to  Quasimodo  and  Tri- 
boulet  and  compare  them  not  merely  with  such  attempts 
in  this  line  as  those  of  writers  like  Beddoes,  but  even  with 
the  magnificent  work  of  Mr.  Browning,  who  though  far 
more  subtle  than  Hugo  is  without  his  sublimity  and 
amazing  power  over  chiaroscuro.  Now,  the  most  re- 
markable feature  of  the  revival  of  '  Le  Roi  s'Amuse,'  and 
that  which  made  me  above  all  other  reasons  desirous  to 
see  it,  was  that  the  character  of  Triboulet  was  to  be 
rendered  by  an  actor  of  rare  and  splendid  genius,  but  who, 
educated  in  the  genteel  comedy  of  modern  France  and 
also  in  the  social  subtleties  of  Moliere,  seemed  the  last 
man  in  Paris  to  give  that  peculiar  expression  of  the  ro- 
mantic temper  which  I  have  called  the  terrible-grotesque. 


The  Two  Histrionic  Types  127 

That  M.  Got's  success  in  a  part  so  absolutely  un- 
suited  to  him  should  have  been  as  great  as  it  was  is,  in 
my  judgment,  the  crowning  success  of  his  life.  It  is  as 
though  Thackeray,  after  completing  *  Philip,'  had  set 
himself  to  write  a  romance  in  the  style  of  '  Notre  Dame 
de  Paris,'  and  succeeded  in  the  attempt.  Yet  the  success 
of  M.  Got  was  relative  only,  I  think.  The  Triboulet 
was  not  the  Triboulet  of  the  reader's  own  imaginings, 
but  an  admirable  Triboulet  of  the  ComMie  Fran9aise. 
Perhaps,  however,  the  truth  is  that  there  is  not  an  actor 
in  Europe  who  could  adequately  render  such  a  character 
as  Triboulet. 

This  is  what  I  mean  :  all  great  actors  are  divisible  into 
two  groups,  which  are  by  temperament  and  endowment 
the  exact  opposites  of  each  other.  There  are  those  who, 
like  Garrick,  producing  their  effects  by  means  of  a  self- 
dominance  and  a  conservation  of  energy  akin  to  that  of 
Goethe  in  poetry,  are  able  to  render  a  character,  coldly 
indeed,  but  with  matchless  verisimilitude  in  its  every 
nuance.  And  there  are  those  who,  like  Edmund  Kean 
and  Robson,  '  live  '  in  the  character  so  entirely  that  self- 
dominance  and  conservation  of  energy  are  not  possible, 
and  who,  whensoever  the  situation  becomes  very  intense, 
work  miracles  of  representation  by  sheer  imaginative 
abandon,  but  do  so  at  the  expense  of  that  delicacy  of  light 
and  shade  in  the  entire  conception  which  is  the  great 
quest  of  the  actor  as  an  artist.  And  if  it  should  be  found 
that  in  order  to  render  Triboulet  there  is  requisite  for 
the  more  intense  crises  of  the  piece  the  abandon  of 
Kean  and  Robson,  and  at  the  same  time,  for  the  carrying 
on  of  the  play,  the  calm,  self-conscious  staying  power  of 
Garrick,  the  conclusion  will  be  obvious  that  Triboulet 
is  essentially  an  unactable  character.  I  will  illustrate 
this  by  an  instance.     The  reader  will  remember  that  in 


128  The  Acted  Drama 

the  third  act  of  *  Le  Roi  s'Amuse,'  Triboulet's  daughter 
Blanche,  after  having  been  violated  by  the  king  at  the 
Louvre,  rushes  into  the  antechamber,  where  stands  her 
father  surrounded  by  the  group  of  sneering  courtiers  who, 
unknown  both  to  the  king  and  to  Triboulet,  have  ab- 
ducted her  during  the  night  and  set  her  in  the  king's  way. 
When  the  girl  tells  her  father  of  the  terrible  wrong  that 
has  been  done  to  her,  he  passes  at  once  from  the  mood 
of  sardonic  defiance  which  was  natural  to  him  into  a 
state  of  passion  so  terrible  that  a  sudden  and  magical 
effect  is  produced  :  the  conventional  walls  between  him, 
the  poor  despised  court  jester,  and  the  courtiers,  are  sud- 
denly overthrown  by  the  unexpected  operation  of  one  of 
those  great  human  instincts  which  make  the  whole  world 
kin  : — 

Triboulet  (faisant  trois  pas,  et  balayant  du  geste  teus  les  seigneurs  inter  dits). 

Allez-vous-en  d'ici! 
Et,  si  le  roi  Francois  par  malheur  se  hasarde 

A  passer  pres  d'ici,  (i  Monsieur  de  Vermandois)  vous  etcs  de  sa  garde, 
Dites-lui  de  ne  pas  entrer, — que  je  suis  la. 
M.  DE  PiENNE.     On  n'a  jamais  rien  vu  de  fou  comme  cela. 

M,  DE  GoRDES  (lui  faisant  signe  de  se  retirer).    Aux  fous  COmme  aux  enfantS 
on  cede  quelque  chose. 
Veillons  pourtant,  de  peur  d'accident.  [lis  sortent. 

Triboulet  (s'asseyant  sur  le  fauteuil  du  roi  et  relevant  sa  fille.)  Allons,  cauSe. 
Dis-moi  tout.  (Il  se  retoume,  et,  apercevant  Monsieur  de  Coss6,  qui  est 
reste,  il  se  l^ve  k  demi   en   lui    montrant    la    porte).     M'aveZ-VOUS      en 

tendu,  monseigneur  ? 

M.  DeCoss'e   (tout  en   se  retirant  comme  subjugu6  par  I'ascendant  du  bouffon). 

Ces   fous,  cela  se  croit    tout  permis,  en    honneur  ! 

[II  sort. 

Now  in  reading  '  Le  Roi  s'Amuse,'  startling  as  is  the 
situation,  it  does  not  seem  exaggerated,  for  Victor  Hugo's 
lines  are  adequate  in  simple  passion  to  effect  the  dramatic 
work,  and  the  reader  feels  that  Triboulet  was  wrought 
up  to  the  state  of  exaltation  to  which  the  lines  give  ex- 


Got  in  '  Triboulet '  129 

pression,  that  nothing  could  resist  him,  and  that  the 
proud  courtiers  must  in  truth  have  cowered  before  him 
in  the  manner  here  indicated  by  the  dramatist.     In  litera- 
ture the  artist  does  not  actualize  ;  he  suggests,  and  leaves 
the  reader's  imagination  free.    But  an  actor  has  to  actual- 
ize this  state  of  exaltation — ^he  has  to  bring  the  physical 
condition  answering  to  the  emotional  condition  before 
the  eyes  of  the  spectator  ;  and  if  he  fails  to  display  as 
much  of  the  '  fine  frenzy  '  of  passion  as  is  requisite  to 
cow  and  overawe  a  group    of    cynical    worldlings,  the 
situation  becomes   forced  and  unnatural,   inasmuch  as 
they  are  overawed  without  a  sufficient  cause.     That  an 
actor  like  Robson  could  and  would  have  risen  to  such  an 
occasion  no  one  will  doubt  who  ever  saw  him  (for  he  was 
the  very  incarnation  of  the  romantic  temper),  but  then 
the  exhaustion  would  have  been  so  great  that  it  would 
have  been  impossible  for  him  to  go  on  bearing  the  entire 
weight  of  this  long  play  as  M.  Got  does.     The  actor 
requires,  as  I  say,  the  abandon  characteristic  of  one  kind 
of  histrionic  art  together  with  the  staying  power  charac- 
teristic of  another.     Now,  admirable  as  is  M.  Got  in  this 
and  in  all  scenes  of  '  Le  Roi  s'Amuse,'  he  does  not  pass 
into  such  a  condition  of  exalted  passion  as  makes  the 
retirement  of  the  courtiers  seem  probable.     For  artistic 
perfection  there  was  nothing  in  the  entire  representation 
that  surpassed  the  scenes  between  Saltabadil  and  Maguel- 
onne  in  the  hovel  on  the  banks  of  the  Seine.     It  would 
be  difficult,  indeed,  to  decide  which  was  the  more  admir- 
able, the  Saltabadil  of  M.  Febvre  or  the  Maguelonne  of 
Jeanne  Samary. 

AT  THE  THEATRE  FRAN^AIS 
November  22,  1882 
Poet  of  pity  and  scourge  of  sceptred  crime — 
Titan  of  light,  with  scarce  the  gods  for  peers — 
W.-D.  9 


130  The  Acted  Drama 

What  thoughts  come  to  thee  through  the  mist  of  years 
There  sitting  calm,  master  of  Fate  and  Time  ? 
Homage  from  every  tongue,  from  every  clime, 

In  place  of  gibes,  fills  now  thy  satiate  ears. 

Mine  own  heart  swells,  mine  eyeUds  prick  with  tears 
In  very  pride  of  thee,  old  man  sublime  ! 

And  thou,  the  mother  who  bore  him,  beauteous  France, 
Round  whose  fair  limbs  what  web  of  sorrow  is  spun  1 — 

I  see  thee  lift  thy  tear-stained  countenance — 
Victress  by  many  a  victory  he  hath  won  ; 

I  hear  thy  voice  o'er  winds  of  Fate  and  Chance 
Say  to  the  conquered  world  :  '  Behold  my  son  ! ' 

I  may  mention  here  that  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has  al- 
ways shown  the  greatest  admiration  of  the  actor's  art  and 
the  greatest  interest  in  actors  and  actresses.  He  has 
affirmed  that  *  the  one  great  art  in  which  women  are 
as  essential  as  men — the  one  great  art  in  which  their 
place  can  never  be  supplied  by  men — is  in  the  acted  drama, 
which  the  Greeks  held  in  such  high  esteem  that  ^s- 
chylus  and  Sophocles  acted  as  stage  managers  and  show- 
masters,  although  the  stage  mask  dispensed  with  much 
of  the  necessity  of  calling  in  the  aid  of  women.' 

'  Great  as  is  the  importance  of  female  poets,'  says 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  '  men  are  so  rich  in  endowment, 
that  literature  would  be  a  worthy  expression  of  the  human 
mind  if  there  had  been  no  Sappho  and  no  Emily  Bronte 
— no  Mrs.  Browning — no  Christina  Rossetti.  Great  as 
is  the  importance  of  female  novelists,  men  again  are  so 
rich  in  endowment  that  literature  would  be  a  worthy 
expression  of  the  human  mind  if  there  had  been  no 
Georges  Sand,  no  Jane  Austen,  no  Charlotte  Bronte,  no 
George  Eliot,  no  Mrs.  Gaskell,  no  Mrs.  Craigie.  As  to 
painting  and  music,  up  to  now  women  have  not  been 
notable  workers  in  either  of  these  departments,  notwith- 


The  Importance  or  Actresses  131 

standing  Rosa  Bonheur  and  one  or  two  others.  But,  to 
say  nothing  of  France,  what  in  England  would  have  been 
the  acted  drama,  whether  in  prose  or  verse,  without 
Mrs.  Siddons,  Mrs.  Hermann  Vezin,  Adelaide  Neilson, 
Miss  Glyn,  in  tragedy  ;  without  Mrs.  Bracegirdle,  Kitty 
Clive,  Julia  Neilson,  Ellen  Terry,  Irene  Vanbrugh  and 
Ada  Rehan  in  comedy  ?  ' 

People  who  run  down  actresses  should  say  at  once  that 
the  acted  drama  is  not  one  of  the  fine  arts  at  all.  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  has  often  expressed  the  opinion  that 
there  is  in  England  a  great  waste  of  histrionic  en- 
dowment among  women,  owing  to  the  ignorant  pre- 
judice against  the  stage  which  even  now  is  prevalent 
in  England.  '  An  enormous  waste  of  force,'  says  he, 
'  there  is,  of  course,  in  other  departments  of  intellec- 
tual activity,  but  nothing  like  the  waste  of  latent 
histrionic  powers  among  Englishwomen.'  And  he  sup- 
plies many  examples  of  this  which  have  come  under 
his  own  observation,  among  which  I  can  mention  only 
one. 

'  Some  years  ago,'  he  said  to  me,  '  I  was  invited  to 
go  to  see  the  performance  of  a  French  play  given  by  the 
pupils  of  a  fashionable  school  in  the  West  End  of  Lon- 
don. Apart  from  the  admirable  French  accent  of  the  girls 
I  was  struck  by  the  acting  of  two  or  three  performers 
who  showed  some  latent  dramatic  talent.  I  have  always 
taken  an  interest  in  amateur  dramatic  performances,  for  a 
reason  that  Lady  Archibald  Campbell  in  one  of  her  writ- 
ings has  well  discussed,  namely,  that  what  the  amateur 
actor  or  actress  may  lack  in  knowledge  of  stage  traditions 
he  or  she  will  sometimes  more  than  make  up  for  by  the 
sweet  flexibility  and  abandon  of  nature.  The  amateur  will 
often  achieve  that  rarest  of  all  artistic  excellencies,  whether 
in   poetry,    painting,    sculpture,  music,  or  histrionics — 


132  The  Acted  Drama 

nafvet^ :  a  quality  which  in  poetry  is  seen  in  its  perfec- 
tion in  the  finest  of  the  writings  of  Coleridge  ;  in  acting, 
it  is  perhaps  seen  in  its  perfection  in  Duse.  Now,  on  the 
occasion  to  which  I  refer,  one  of  these  schoolgirl  actresses 
achieved,  as  I  thought,  and  as  others  thought  with  me, 
this  rare  and  perfect  flower  of  histrionics ;  and  when  I 
came  to  know  her  I  found  that  she  joined  wide  culture 
and  an  immense  knowledge  of  Shakespeare,  Corneille, 
Racine,  and  Moliere  with  an  innate  gift  for  rendering 
them.  In  any  other  society  than  that  of  England  she 
would  have  gone  on  the  stage  as  a  matter  of  course,  but 
the  fatal  prejudice  about  social  position  prevented  her 
from  following  the  vocation  that  Nature  intended  for 
her.  Since  then  I  have  seen  two  or  three  such  cases,  not 
so  striking  as  this  one,  but  striking  enough  to  make  me 
angry  with  Philistinism.' 

With  this  sympathy  for  histrionic  art,  it  is  not 
at  all  surprising  that  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  took  the 
greatest  interest  in  the  open-air  plays  organized  by 
Lady  Archibald  Campbell  at  Coombe.  I  have  seen 
a  brilliant  description  of  these  plays  by  him  which 
ought  to  have  been  presented  to  the  public  years  ago.  It 
forms,  I  believe,  a  long  chapter  of  an  unpublished  novel. 
Turning  over  the  pages  of  Davenport  Adams's  '  Dic- 
tionary of  the  Drama,'  which  every  lover  of  the  theatre 
must  regret  he  did  not  live  to  complete,  I  come  acci- 
dentally upon  these  words :  "  One  of  the  most  recently 
printed  epilogues  is  that  which  Theodore  Watts-Dunton 
wrote  for  an  amateur  performance  of  Banville's  '  Le 
Baiser  '  at  Coombe,  Surrey,  in  August,  1889."  ^^"^  ^^^^ 
reminds  me  that  I  ought  to  quote  this  famous  epilogue 
here ;  for  Professor  Strong  in  his  review  of  '  The 
Coming  of  Love  '  in  '  Literature  '  speaks  of  the  amazing 
command  over  metre  and  colour  and  story  displayed  in 


Open-Air  Plays   at  Coombe  133 

the  poem.  It  is,  I  believe,  the  only  poem  in  the  English 
language  in  which  an  elaborate  story  is  fully  told  by  poetic 
suggestion  instead  of  direct  statement. 

A    REMINISCENCE    OF    T&E    OPEN-AIR    PLAYS. 
Epilogue  for  the  open-air  performance  of  Banville's  '  Le  Baiser, 
in  which  Lady  Archibald   Campbell  took  the  part  of  '  Pierrot ' 
and  Miss  Annie  Schletter  the  part  of  the  '  Fairy.' — Coombe,  August 
9,  1889. 

To  Pierrot  in  Love 

The  Clown  whose  kisses  turned  a  Crone  to  a  Fairy-queen 
What  dost  thou  here  in  Love's  enchanted  wood, 

Pierrot,  who  once  wert  safe  as  clown  and  thief — 
Held  safe  by  love  of  fun  and  wine  and  food — 

From  her  who  follows  love  of  Woman,  Grief — 
Her  who  of  old  stalked  over  Eden-grass 

Behind  Love's  baby-feet — whose  shadow  threw 
On  every  brook,  as  on  a  magic  glass, 
Prophetic  shapes  of  what  should  come  to  pass 

When  tears  got  mixt  with  Paradisal  dew  ? 

Kisses  are  loved  but  for  the  lips  that  kiss : 

Thine  have  restored  a  princess  to  her  throne, 
Breaking  the  spell  which  barred  from  fairy  bliss 

A  fay,  and  shrank  her  to  a  wrinkled  crone  ; 
But,  if  thou  dream'st  that  thou  from  Pantomime  ' 

Shalt  clasp  an  angel  of  the  mystic  moon. 
Clasp  her  on  banks  of  Love's  own  rose  and  thyme, 
While  woodland  warblers  ring  the  nuptial-chime — 

Bottom  to  thee  were  but  a  week  buffoon. 

When  yonder  fairy,  long  ago,  was  told 

The  spell  which  caught  her  in  malign  eclipse. 

Turning  her  radiant  body  foul  and  old. 

Would  yield  to  some  knight-erra^t's  virgin  lips, 

And  when,  through  many  a  weary  day  and  night. 
She,  wondering  who  the  paladin  would  be 

Whose  kiss  should  charm  her  from  her  grievous  plight, 

Pictured  a-many  princely  heroes  bright, 
Dost  thou  suppose  she  ever  pictured  thee  ? 


134  The  Acted  Drama 

'Tis  true  the  mischief  of  the  foeman's  charm 

Yielded  to  thee — to  that  first  kiss  of  thine. 
We  saw  her  tremble — lift  a  rose-wreath  arm, 

Which  late,  all  veined  and  shrivelled,  made  her  pine ; 
We  saw  her  fingers  rise  and  touch  her  cheek, 

As  if  the  morning  breeze  across  the  wood, 
Which  lately  seemed  to  strike  so  chill  and  bleak 
Through  all  the  wasted  body,  bent  and  weak. 

Were  light  and  music  now  within  her  blood. 

'Tis  true  thy  kiss  made  all  her  form  expand — 

Made  all  the  skin  grow  smooth  and  pure  as  pearl, 
Till  there  she  stood,  tender,  yet  tall  and  grand, 

A  queen  of  Faery,  yet  a  lovesome  girl, 
Within  whose  eyes — whose  wdde,  new-litten  eyes — 

New-Htten  by  thy  kiss's  re-creation — 
Expectant  joy  that  yet  was  wild  surprise 
Made  all  her  flesh  Hke  light  of  summer  skies 

When  dawn  lies  dreaming  of  the  morn's  carnation. 

But  when  thou  saw'st  the  breaking  of  the  spell 

Within  whose  grip  of  might  her  soul  had  pined, 
Like  some  sweet  butterfly  that  breaks  the  cell 

In  which  its  purple  pinions  slept  confined. 
And  when  thou  heard'st  the  strains  of  elfin  song 

Her  sisters  sang  from  rainbow  cars  above  her — 
Didst  thou  suppose  that  she,  though  prisoned  long, 
And  freed  at  last  by  thee  from  all  the  wrong, 

Must  for  that  kiss  take  Harlequin  for  lover  ? 

Hearken,  sweet  fool !     Though  Banville  carried  thee 

To  lawns  where  love  and  song  still  share  the  sward 
Beyond  the  golden  river  few  can  see, 

And  fewer  still,  in  these  grey  days,  can  ford  ; 
And  though  he  bade  the  wings  of  Passion  fan 

Thy  face,  till  every  Hne  grows  bright  and  human, 
Feathered  thy  spirit's  wing  for  wider  span. 
And  fired  thee  with  the  fire  that  comes  to  man 

When  first  he  plucks  the  rose  of  Nature,  Woman ; 


Literary   Reunions  135 

And  though  our  actress  gives  thee  that  sweet  gaze 

Where  spirit  and  matter  mingle  in  liquid  blue — 
That  face,  where  pity  through  the  frolic  plays — 

That  form,  whose  lines  of  light  Love's  pencil  drew — 
That  voice  whose  music  seems  a  new  caress 

Whenever  passion  makes  a  new  transition 
From  key  to  key  of  joy  or  quaint  distress — 
That  sigh,  when,  now,  thy  fairy's  loveliness 

Leaves  thee  alone  to  mourn  Love's  vanished  vision : 

Still  art  thou  Pierrot — naught  but  Pierrot  ever ; 

For  is  not  this  the  very  word  of  Fate  : 
'  No  mortal,  clown  or  king,  shall  e'er  dissever  '    ^ 

His  present  glory  from  his  past  estate  '  ? 
Yet  be  thou  wise  and  dry  those  foolish  tears ; 

The  clown's  first  kiss  was  needed,  not  the  clown, 
By  her,  who,  fired  by  hopes  and  chiUed  by  fears. 
Sought  but  a  kiss  Uke  thine  for  years  on  years : 

Be  wise,  I  say,  and  wander  back  to  town. 

Recurring  to  the  Marston  gatherings,  I  reproduce  here, 
from  the  same  unpubHshed  story  to  which  I  have  already 
alluded,  the  following  interesting  account  of  them  and 
of  other  social  reunions  of  the  like  kind. 

"  Many  of  those  who  have  reached  life's  meridian,  or 
passed  it,  will  remember  the  sudden  rise,  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury ago,  of  Rossetti,  Swinburne,  and  William  Morris — 
poets  who  seemed  for  a  time  to  threaten  the  ascendency  of 
Tennyson  himself.  Between  this  galaxy  and  the  latest 
generation  of  poets  there  rose,  culminated,  and  apparently 
set,  another — the  group  which  it  was  the  foolish  fashion  to 
call  '  the  pre-Raphaelite  poets,'  some  of  whom  yielded, 
or  professed  to  yield,  to  the  influence  of  Rossetti,  some  to 
that  of  William  Morris,  and  some  to  that  of  Swinburne. 
Round  them  all,  however,  there  was  the  aura  of  Baude- 
laire or  else  of  Gautier.     These — though,  as  in  all  such 


136  The  Acted   Drama 

cases,  nature  had  really  made  them  very  unlike  each  other 
— formed  themselves  into  a  set,  or  rather  a  sect,  and  tried 
apparently  to  become  as  much  like  each  other  as  possible, 
by  studying  French  models,  selecting  subjects  more  or 
less  in  harmony  with  the  French  temper,  getting  up  their 
books  after  the  fashion  that  was  as  much  approved  then 
as  contemporary  fashions  in  books  are  approved  now,  and 
by  various  other  means.  They  had  certain  places  of 
meeting,  where  they  held  high  converse  with  themselves. 
One  of  these  was  the  hospitable  house,  in  Fitzroy  Square, 
of  the  beloved  and  venerable  painter,  Mr.  Madox 
Brown,  whose  face,  as  he  sat  smiling  upon  his  Eisteddfod, 
radiating  benevolence  and  encouragement  to  the  un- 
fledged bards  he  loved,  was  a  picture  which  must  be 
cherished  in  many  a  grateful  memory  now.  Another 
was  the  equally  hospitable  house,  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Chalk  Farm,  where  reigned  the  dramatist,  Westland 
Marston,  and  where  his  blind  poet-boy  Philip  lived. 
Here  O'Shaughnessy  would  come  with  a  glow  of  triumph 
on  his  face,  which  indicated  clearly  enough  what  he  was 
carrying  in  his  pocket — something  connecting  him  with 
the  divine  Theophile — a  letter  from  the  Gallic  Olympus 
perhaps,  or  a  presentation  copy  sent  from  the  very  top 
of  the  Gallic  Parnassus.  It  was  on  one  of  these  occa- 
sions that  Rossetti  satirically  advised  one  of  the  cenacle 
to  quit  so  poor  a  language  as  that  of  Shakespeare  and 
write  entirely  in  French,  which  language  Morris  im- 
mediately defined  as  '  nosey  Latin.'  It  is  a  pity  that 
some  literary  veteran  does  not  give  his  reminiscences  of 
those  Marston  nights,  or  rather  Marston  mornings,  for 
the  symposium  began  at  about  twelve  and  went  on  till 
nearly  six — those  famous  gatherings  of  poets,  actors,  and 
painters,  enlinking  the  days  of  Macready,  Phelps,  Miss 
Glyn,  Robert    Browning,  Dante    Rossetti,    and  R.  H- 


Fitzroy  Square  and  Cheyne  Walk       137 

Home,  with  the  days  of  poets,  actors,  and  painters 
like  Mr.  Swinburne,  Morris,  and  Mr.  Irving.  Yet 
these  pre-Raphaelite  bards  had  another  joy  surpassing 
even  that  of  the  Chalk  Farm  symposium,  that  of  assist- 
ing at  those  literary  and  artistic  feasts  which  Rossetti 
used  occasionally  to  give  at  Cheyne  Walk.  Generosity 
and  geniality  incarnate  was  the  mysterious  poet-painter 
to  those  he  loved  ;  and  if  the  budding  bard  yearned 
for  sympathy,  as  he  mostly  does,  he  could  get  quite 
as  much  as  he  deserved,  and  more,  at  16  Cheyne  Walk. 
To  say  that  any  artist  could  take  a  deeper  interest 
in  the  work  of  a  friend  than  in  his  own  seems  bold,  yet 
it  could  be  said  of  Rossetti.  The  mean  rivalries  of  the 
literary  character  that  so  often  make  men  experienced  in 
the  world  shrink  away  from  it,  found  no  place  in  that 
great  heart.  To  hear  him  recite  in  his  musical  voice  the 
sonnet  or  lyric  of  some  unknown  bard  or  bardling — recite 
it  in  such  a  way  as  to  lend  the  lines  the  light  and  music 
of  his  own  marvellous  genius,  while  the  bard  or  bardling 
listened  with  head  bowed  low,  so  that  the  flush  on  his 
cheek  and  the  moisture  in  his  eye  should  not  be  seen — 
this  was  an  experience  that  did  indeed  make  the  bardic 
life  '  worth  living.'  " 


Chapter  XI 

DANTE   GABRIEL    ROSSETTI 

Thou  knowest  that  island,  far  away  and  lone, 
Whose  shores  are  as  a  harp,  where  billows  break 
In  spray  of  music  and  the  breezes  shake 

O'er  spicy  seas  a  woof  of  colour  and  tone. 

While  that  sweet  music  echoes  like  a  moan 

In  the  island's  heart,  and  sighs  around  the  lake, 
Where,  watching  fearfully  a  watchful  snake, 

A  damsel  weeps  upon  her  emerald  throne. 

Life's  ocean,  breaking  round  thy  senses'  shore. 
Struck  golden  song,  as  from  the  strand  of  Day : 
For  us  the  joy,  for  thee  the  fell  foe  lay — 

Pain's  blinking  snake  around  the  fair  isle's  core. 

Turning  to  sighs  the  enchanted  sounds  that  play 

Around  thy  lovely  island  evermore. 

I  AM  now  brought  to  a  portion  of  my  study  which 
may  well  give  me  pause — the  relations  between 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  and  Rossetti.  The  latest  remarks 
upon  them  are,  I  think,  the  best  ;  they  are  by  Mr.  A. 
C.  Benson  in  his  monograph  on  Rossetti  in  the  '  Eng- 
lish Men  of  Letters  '  : — 

"  It  would  be  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  value  of 
his  friendship  for  Rossetti.  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  under- 
stood him,  sympathized  with  him,  and  with  self-denying 
and  unobtrusive  delicacy  shielded  him,  so  far  as  any  one 
can  be  shielded,  from  the  rough  contact  of  the  world. 


Mr.   Benson   on   Rossetti  139 

It  was  for  a  long  time  hoped  that  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
would  give  the  memoir  of  his  great  friend  to  the  world, 
but  there  is  such  a  thing  as  knowing  a  man  too  well  to 
be  his  biographer.  It  is,  however,  an  open  secret  that 
a  vivid  sketch  of  Rossetti's  personality  has  been  given 
to  the  world  in  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  well-known  ro- 
mance *  Aylwin,'  where  the  artist  D'Arcy  is  drawn  from 
Rossetti.  .  .  .  Though  singularly  independent  in  judg- 
ment, it  is  clear  that,  at  all  events  in  the  later  years  of 
his  life,  Rossetti's  taste  was,  unconsciously,  considerably 
affected  by  the  critical  preferences  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton. 
I  have  heard  it  said  by  one  ^  who  knew  them  both  well 
that  it  was  often  enough  for  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  to 
express  a  strong  opinion  for  Rossetti  to  adopt  it  as  his 
own,  even  though  he  might  have  combated  it  for  the 
moment.  ...  , 

At  the  end  of  each  part  [of  '  Rose  Mary ']  comes 
a  curious  lyrical  outburst  called  the  Beryl-songs,  the  chant 
of  the  imprisoned  spirits,  which  are  intended  to  weld  the 
poem  together  and  to  supply  connections.  It  is  said 
that  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  when  he  first  read  the  poem  in 
proof,  said  to  Rossetti  that  the  drift  was  too  intricate  for 
an  ordinary  reader.  Rossetti  took  this  to  heart,  and 
wrote  the  Beryl-songs  to  bridge  the  gaps  ;  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton,  on  being  shown  them,  very  rightly  disapproved, 
and  said  humorously  that  they  turned  a  fine  ballad  into 
a  bastard  opera.  Rossetti,  who  was  ill  at  the  time,  was 
so  much  disconcerted  and  upset  at  the  criticism,  that 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  modified  his  judgment,  and  the  inter- 
ludes were  printed.     But  at  a  later  day  Rossetti  himself 

^  I  think  I  am  not  far  wrong  in  saying  that  he  whom  Mr.  Benson 
heard  make  this  remark  was  a  more  illustrious  poet  than  even  D.  G. 
Rossetti,  the  greatest  poet  indeed  of  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  the  author  of  '  Erechtheus '  and  '  Atalanta  in  Calydon.' 


140  Dante  Gabriel   Rossetti 

came  round  to  the  opinion  that  they  were  inappropriate. 
They  are  curiously  wrought,  rhapsodical,  irregular 
songs,  with  fantastic  rhymes,  and  were  better  away.  .  .  . 
Then  he  began  to  settle  down  into  the  production 
of  the  single-figure  pictures,  of  which  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
wrote  that  *  apart  from  any  question  of  technical  short- 
comings, one  of  Rossetti's  strongest  claims  to  the  atten- 
tion of  posterity  was  that  of  having  invented,  in  the 
three-quarter  length  pictures  painted  from  one  face,  a 
type  of  female  beauty  which  was  akin  to  none  other, 
which  was  entirely  new,  in  short — and  which,  for  wealth 
of  sublime  and  mysterious  suggestion,  unaided  by  com- 
plex dramatic  design,  was  unique  in  the  art  of  the 
world." 

It  is  well  known  that  Rossetti  wished  his  life — if 
written  at  all — to  be  written  by  Mr.  Watts-Dunton, 
unless  his  brother  should  undertake  it.  It  is  also  well 
known  that  the  brother  himself  wished  it,  but  pressure 
of  other  matters  prevented  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  from 
undertaking  it.  I  expected  difficulties  in  approach- 
ing with  regard  to  the  delicate  subject  .of  his  rela- 
tions with  Rossetti,  but  I  was  not  prepared  to  find  them 
so  great  as  they  have  proved  to  be.  When  I  wrote  to 
him  and  asked  him  whether  the  portrait  of  D'Arcy  in 
*  Aylwin  '  was  to  be  accepted  as  a  portrait  of  Rossetti, 
and  when  I  asked  him  to  furnish  me  with  some  materials 
and  facts  to  form  the  basis  of  this  chapter,  I  received  from 
him  the  following  letter  : — 

"  My  dear  Mr.  Douglas, — I  have  never  myself 
affirmed  that  D'Arcy  was  to  be  taken  as  an  actual  por- 
trait of  Rossetti.  Even  if  I  thought  that  a  portrait  of 
him  could  be  given  in  any  form  of  imaginative  literature. 


::^i%irC^  ^C^3u^n,m^. 


PANDORA. 

;rayon    by  d.g.rosSETTI  at  the   pinee 


Prototypes   of  Characters  141 

I  have  views  of  my  own  as  to  the  propriety  of  giving 
actual  portraits  of  men  with  whom  a  novelist  or  poet  has 
been  brought  into  contact.  It  is  quite  impossible  for  an 
imaginative  writer  to  avoid  the  imperious  suggestions  of 
his  memory  when  he  is  conceiving  a  character.  Thou- 
sands of  times  in  a  year  does  one  come  across  critical 
remarks  upon  the  prototypes  of  the  characters  of  such 
great  novelists  as  Scott,  Dickens,  Thackeray,  the  Brontes, 
George  Eliot,  George  Meredith,  Thomas  Hardy,  and  the 
rest.  And  I  believe  that  every  one  of  these  writers 
would  confess  that  his  prominent  characters  were  sug- 
gested to  him  by  living  individuals  or  by  individuals  who 
figure  in  history — but  suggested  only.  And  as  to  the 
ethics  of  so  dealing  with  friends  and  acquaintances  I  have 
also  views  of  my  own.  These  are  easily  stated.  The 
closer  the  imaginative  writer  gets  to  the  portrait  of  a 
friend,  or  even  of  an  acquaintance,  the  more  careful 
must  he  be  to  set  his  subject  in  a  genial  and  even  a  gener- 
ous light.  It  would  be  a  terrible  thing  if  every  man  who 
has  been  a  notable  figure  in  life  were  to  be  represented 
as  this  or  that  at  the  sweet  will  of  everybody  who  has 
known  him.  Generous  treatment,  I  say,  is  demanded 
of  every  writer  who  makes  use  of  the  facets  of  character 
that  have  struck  him  in  his  intercourse  with  friend  or 
acquaintance.  I  will  give  you  an  instance  of  this.  When 
I  drew  De  Castro  in  '  Aylwin  '  I  made  use  of  my  know- 
ledge of  a  certain  individual.  Now  this  individual,  al- 
though a  man  of  quite  extraordinary  talents,  brilliance, 
and  personal  charm,  bore  not  a  very  good  name,  because 
he  was  driven  to  live  upon  his  wits.  He  had  endow- 
ments so  great  and  so  various  that  I  cannot  conceive 
any  line  of  life  in  which  he  was  not  fitted  to  excel — but 
it  was  his  irreparable  misfortune  to  have  been  trained 
to  no  business    and  no  profession,  and  to  have  been 


142  Dante   Gabriel  Rossetti 

thrown  upon  the  world  without  means,  and  without 
useful  family  connections.  Such  a  man  must  either 
sink  beneath  the  oceanic  waves  of  London  life,  or  he 
must  make  a  struggle  to  live  upon  his  wits.  This  indi- 
vidual made  that  struggle — he  struck  out  with  a  vigour 
that,  as  far  as  I  know,  was  without  example  in  London 
society.  He  got  to  know,  and  to  know  intimately,  men 
like  Ruskin,  G.  F.  Watts,  D.  G.  Rossetti,  Mr.  W.  M. 
Rossetti,  William  Morris,  Mr.  Swinburne,  Sir  Edward 
Burne  Jones,  Cruikshank,  and  I  know  not  what  important 
people  besides.  When  he  was  first  brought  into  touch 
with  the  painters,  he  knew  nothing  whatever  of  art ;  in 
two  or  three  years,  as  I  have  heard  Rossetti  say,  he  was  a 
splendid  '  connoisseur.'  If  he  had  been  brought  up  as 
a  lawyer  he  must  have  risen  to  the  top  of  the  profession. 
If  he  had  been  brought  up  as  an  actor  he  must,  as  I  have 
heard  a  dramatist  say,  have  risen  to  the  top.  But  from 
his  very  first  appearance  in  London  he  was  driven  to  live 
upon  his  wits.  And  here  let  me  say  that  this  man,  who 
was  a  bitter  unfriend  of  my  own,  because  I  was  com- 
pelled to  stand  in  the  way  of  certain  dealings  of  his,  but 
whom  I  really  could  have  liked  if  he  had  not  been  obliged 
to  live  upon  his  wits  at  the  expense  of  certain  friends  of 
mine,  formed  the  acquaintance  of  the  great  men  I  have 
enumerated,  not  so  much  from  worldly  motives,  as  I 
believe,  as  from  real  admiration.  But  being  driven  to 
live  upon  his  wits,  he  had  not  sufficient  moral  strength 
to  afford  a  conscience,  and  the  queerest  stories  were  told 
— some  of  them  true  enough — of  his  dealings  with  those 
great  men.  Whistler's  anecdotes  of  him  at  one  period 
set  many  a  table  in  a  roar;  and  yet  so  winsome  was  the 
man  that  after  a  time  he  became  as  intimate  with  Whist- 
ler as  ever.  If  he  had  possessed  a  private  income,  and  if 
that  income  had  been  carefully  settled  upon  him,  I  be- 


The   Character  of  De  Castro  143 

Ifeve  he  would  have  been  one  of  the  most  honest  of  men  ; 
I  know  he  would  have  been  one  of  the  most  generous. 
Hjs  conduct  to  the  late  Treffry  Dunn,  from  whom  he 
could  not  have  expected  the  least  return  except  that  of 
gratitude,  was  proof  enough  of  his  generosity.  Of  course 
to  make  use  of  so  strange  a  character  as  this  was  a  great 
temptation  to  me  when  I  wrote  '  Aylwin.'  But  in  what 
has  been  called  my  '  thumb-nail  portrait  of  him,'  I 
treated  the  peccadilloes  attributed  to  him  in  a  playful 
and  jocose  way.  It  would  have  been  quite  wrong  to 
have  painted  otherwise,than  in  playful  colours  a  character 
like  this.  Like  every  other  man  and  woman  in  this 
world,  he  left  behind  him  people  who  believed  in 
him  and  loved  him.  It  would  have  been  cruel  to  wound 
these,  and  unfair  to  the  man ;  and  yet  because  I 
gave  only  a  slight  suggestion  of  his  sublime  quackery 
and  supreme  blarney,  a  writer  who  also  knew  something 
about  him,  but  of  course  not  a  thousandth  part  of  what 
I  knew,  said  that  I  had  tried  my  hand  at  depicting  him 
in  '  Aylwin,'  but  with  no  great  success.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  I  did  not  attempt  to  give  a  portrait  of  him  :  I 
simply  used  certain  facets  of  his  character  to  work  out 
my  story,  and  then  dismissed  him.  On  the  other  hand, 
where  the  character  of  a  friend  or  acquaintance  is  noble, 
the  imagination  can  work  more  freely — as  in  the  case  of 
Philip  Aylwin,  Cyril  Aylwin,  Wilderspin,  Rhona  Bos- 
well,  Winifred  Wynne,  Sinfi  Lovell.  And  as  to  Ros- 
setti,  whom  I  have  been  charged  by  certain  critics 
with  having  idealized  in  my  picture  of  D'Arcy,  all  I  have 
to  say  on  that  point  is  this — that  if  the  noble  and  fascin- 
ating qualities  which  Rossetti  showed  had  been  leavened 
with  mean  ones  I  should  not,  in  introducing  his  character 
into  a  story,  have  considered  it  right  or  fair  or  generous 
to  dwell  upon  those    mean  ones.     But  as  a    matter  of 


144  Dante   Gabriel   Rossetti 

fact,  during  my  whole  intercourse  with  him  he  displayed 
no  such  qualities.     The  D'Arcy  that  I  have  painted  is 
not  one  whit  nobler,  more  magnanimous,  wide-minded, 
and  generous,  than  was  D.  G.  Rossetti.     As  I  have  said 
on  several  occasions,  he  could  and  did  take  as  deep  an  in- 
terest in  a  friend's  work  as  in  his  own.     And  to  benefit 
a  friend  was  the  greatest  pleasure  he  had  in  life.     I  loved 
the  man  so  deeply  that  I  should  never  have  introduced 
D'Arcy  into  the   novel  had  it  not  been  in  the  hope  of 
silencing  the   misrepresentations   of  him  that  began  as 
soon  as  ever  Rossetti  was  laid  in  the  grave  at  Birching- 
ton,  by  depicting  his  character  in   colours    as    true   as 
they  were  sympathetic.     It  has  been  the  grievous  fate 
of  Rossetti  to  be  the  victim  of  an  amount  of  detrac- 
tion which  is  simply  amazing  and  inscrutable.     I  cannot 
in  the  least  understand  why  this  is  so.     It  is  the  great 
sorrow  of  my  life.     There  is  a  fatality  of  detraction  about 
his  name  which  in  its  unreasonableness  would  be  gro- 
tesque  were   it   not  heartrending.     It  would   turn   my 
natural  optimism  about  mankind  into  pessimism  were  it 
not  that  another  dear  friend  of  mine — a  man  of  equal 
nobility  of  character,   and  almost  of  equal  genius,   has 
escaped    calumny    altogether — ^William    Morris.     This 
matter  is  a  painful  puzzle  to  me.     The  only  great  man 
of  my    time    who   seems   to  have  shared  something  of 
Rossetti's  fate,  is  Lord  Tennyson.     There  seems  to  be  a 
general  desire  to  belittle  him,  to  exaggerate  such  angu- 
larities as  were  his,  and  to  speak  of  that  almost  childlike 
simplicity  of  character  which  was  an  ineffable  charm  in 
him  as  springing  from  boorishness  and  almost  from  lout- 
ishness.     On  the  other  hand,  another  great  genius.  Brown- 
ing, for  whom  I  had  and  have  the  greatest  admiration, 
seems  to  be  as  fortunate  as  Morris  in  escaping  the  de- 
tractor.    But  I  am  wandering  from  Rossetti.     I  do  not 


Rossetti's  Relations   with   His  Wife      145 

feel  any  impulse  to  write  reminiscences  of  him.  Too 
much  has  been  written  about  him  already — of  late  a 
great  deal  too  much.  The  only  thing  written  about  him 
that  has  given  me  comfort — I  may  say  joy,  is  this — 
it  has  been  written  by  a  man  who  knew  him  before  I 
did,  who  knew  him  at  the  time  he  lost  his  wife.  Mr.  Val 
Prinsep,  R.A.,  has  declared  that  in  Rossetti's  relations 
with  his  wife  there  was  nothing  whatever  upon  which  his 
conscience  might  reasonably  trouble  him.  I  do  not  re- 
member the  exact  words,  but  this  was  the  substance  of 
them.  Mr.  Val  Prinsep  is  a  man  of  the  highest  standing, 
and  he  knew  Rossetti  intimately,  and  he  has  declared  in 
print  that  Rossetti  could  have  had  no  qualms  of  con- 
science in  regard  to  his  relations  with  his  wife.  This,  I 
say,  is  a  source  of  great  comfort  to  me  and  to  all  who 
loved  Rossetti.  That  he  was  whimsical,  fanciful,  and  at 
times  most  troublesome  to  his  friends,  no  one  knows 
better  than  I  do. 

No  one,  I  say,  is  more  competent  to  speak  of  the 
whims  and  the  fancies  and  the  troublesomeness  of 
Rossetti  than  I  am  ;  and  yet  I  say  that  he  was  one  of 
the  noblest-hearted  men  of  his  time,  and  lovable — most 
lovable." 

It  would  be  worse  than  idle  to  enter  at  this  time  of  day 
upon  the  painful  subject  of  the  "  Buchanan  affair."  In- 
deed, I  have  often  thought  it  is  a  great  pity  that  it  is  not 
allowed  to  die  out.  The  only  reason  why  it  is  still  kept 
alive  seems  to  be  that,  without  discussing  it,  it  is  im- 
possible fully  to  understand  Rossetti's  nervous  illness, 
about  which  so  much  has  been  said.  I  remember  seeing 
in  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  essay  on  Congreve  in  '  Chambers's 
Encyclopaedia '  a  definition  of  envy  as  the  '  literary 
leprosy.'     This  phrase  has  often  been  quoted  in  reference 

W.-D.  10 


146  Dante   Gabriel   Rossetti 

to  the  case  of  Buchanan,  and  also  in  reference  to  a  recent 
and  much  more  ghastly  case  between  two  intimate  friends. 
Now,  with  all  deference  to  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  I  cannot 
accept  it  as  a  right  and  fair  definition.  It  is  a  fact  no 
doubt  that  the  struggle  in  the  world  of  art — whether 
poetry,  music,  painting,  sculpture,  or  the  drama — is  un- 
like that  of  the  mere  strivers  after  wealth  and  position, 
inasmuch  as  to  praise  one  man's  artistic  work  is  in  a  cer- 
tain way  to  set  it  up  against  the  work  of  another.  Still, 
one  can  realize,  without  referring  to  Disraeli's  '  Curi- 
osities of  Literature,"  that  envy  is  much  too  vigorous 
in  the  artistic  life.  Now,  whatever  may  have  been 
the  good  qualities  of  Buchanan — and  I  know  he  had 
many  good  qualities — it  seems  unfortunately  to  be  true 
that  he  was  afflicted  with  this  terrible  disease  of  envy. 
There  can  be  no  question  that  what  incited  him  to 
write  the  notorious  article  in  the  '  Contemporary 
Review  '  entitled  '  The  Fleshly  School  of  Poetry,'  was 
simply  envy — envy  and  nothing  else.  It  was  during  the 
time  that  Rossetti  was  suffering  most  dreadfully  from  the 
mental  disturbance  which  seems  really  to  have  originated 
in  this  attack  and  the  cognate  attacks  which  appeared  in 
certain  other  magazines,  that  the  intimacy  between  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  and  Rossetti  was  formed  and  cemented. 
And  it  is  to  this  period  that  Mr.  William  Rossetti  alludes 
in  the  following  words  :  "  '  Watts  is  a  hero  of  friend- 
ship '  was,  according  to  Mr.  Caine,  one  of  my  brother's 
last  utterances,  easy  enough  to  be  credited." 

That  he  deserved  these  words  I  think  none  will  deny  ; 
and  that  the  friendship  sprang  from  the  depths  of  the 
nature  of  a  man  to  whom  the  word  '  friendship  '  meant 
not  what  it  generally  means  now,  a  languid  sentiment, 
but  what  it  meant  in  Shakespeare's  time,  a  deep  passion, 
is  shown  by  what  some  deem  the  finest  lines  Mr.  Watts- 


The   Poetry  of  Friendship  147 

Dunton  ever  wrote — I  mean  those  lines  which  he  puts 
into  the  mouth  of  Shakespeare's  Friend  in  *  Christ- 
mas at  the  Mermaid,'  lines  part  of  which  have  been 
admirably  turned  into  Latin  by  Mr.  E.  D.  Stone/  and 
published  by  him  in  the  second  volume  of  that  felicitous 
series  of  Latin  translations,  *  Florilegium  Latinum  '  : — 

*  MR.  W.  H.'  i 

To  sing  the  nation's  song  or  do  the  deed 

That  crowns  with  richer  light  the  motherland, 

Or  lend  her  strength  of  arm  in  hour  of  need  -^ 

When  fangs  of  foes  shine  fierce  on  every  hand. 

Is  joy  to  him  whose  joy  is  working  well — 

Is  goal  and  guerdon  too,  though  never  fame. 

*  As  Mr.  Swinburne  has  pronounced  Mr.  Stone's  translation  to 
be  in  itself  so  fine  as  to  be  almost  a  work  of  genius,  I  will  quote 
it   here : — 

Felix,  qui  potuit  gentem  illustrare  canendo, 
quique  decus  patriae  claris  virtutibus  addit 
succurritque  laboranti,  tutamque  periclis 
eruit,  hostilesque  minas  avertit  acerbo 
dente  lacessitae  ;   bene,  quicquid  fecerit  audax, 
explevisse  iuvat :    metam  tenet  ille  quadrigis, 
praemia  victor  habet,  quamvis  tuba  vivida  famae 
ignoret  titulos,  vel  si  flammante  sagitta 
oppugnet  Livor  quam  mens  sibi  muniit  arcem. 
quod  si  fata  mihi  virtutis  gaudia  tantae 
invideant,  nee  fas  Anglorum  extendere  fines 
latius,  et  nitidae  primordia  libertatis, 
Anglia  cui  praecepit  iter,  cantare  poetae  ; 
si  numeris  laudare  meam  vel  marte  Parentem 
non  mihi  contingat,  nee  Divom  adsumere  vires 
atque  inconcessos  sibi  vindicet  alter  honorcs, 
dignior  ille  mihi  frater,  quern  iure  saluto — 
ilium  divino  praestantem  numine  amabo. 


148  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti 

Should  find  a  thrill  of  music  in  his  name ; 

Yea,  goal  and  guerdon  too,  though  Scorn  should  aim 

Her  arrows  at  his  soul's  high  citadel. 

But  if  the  fates  withhold  the  jojr  from  me 
To  do  the  deed  that  widens  England's  day, 
Or  join  that  song  of  Freedom's  jubilee 
Begun  when  England  started  on  her  way — 
Withhold  from  me  the  hero's  glorious  power 
To  strike  with  song  or  sword  for  her,  the  mother. 
And  give  that  sacred  guerdon  to  another, 
Him  will  I  hail  as  my  more  noble  brother — 
Him  will  I  love  for  his  diviner  dower. 

Enough  for  me  who  have  our  Shakspeare's  love 
To  see  a  poet  win  the  poet's  goal. 
For  Will  is  he  ;   enough  and  far  above 
All  other  prizes  to  make  rich  my  soul. 
Ben  names  my  numbers  golden.     Since  they  tell 
A  tale  of  him  who  in  his  peerless  prime 
Fled  us  ere  yet  one  shadowy  film  of  time 
p"  Could  dim  the  lustre  of  that  brow  sublime, 

Golden  my  numbers  are  :    Ben  praiseth  well. 

It  seems  to  me  to  be  needful  to  bear  in  mind  these 
lines,  and  the  extremely  close  intimacy  between  these 
two  poet-friends  in  order  to  be  able  to  forgive  entirely 
the  unexampled  scourging  of  Buchanan  in  the  following 
sonnet  if,  as  some  writers  think,  Buchanan  was  meant : — 

THE  OCTOPUS  OF  THE  GOLDEN  ISLES 

'what!  will  they  even  strike  at  me  ? ' 

Round  many  an  Isle  of  Song,  in  seas  serene. 
With  many  a  swimmer  strove  the  poet-boy, 
Yet  strove  in  love  :    their  strength,  I  say,  was  joy 

To  him,  my  friend — dear  friend  of  godlike  mien  ! 

But  soon  he  felt  beneath  the  billowy  green 
A  monster  moving — moving  to  destroy  : 
Limb  after  limb  became  the  tortured  toy 

Of  coils  that  clung  and  lips  that  stung  unseen. 


'Gabriel  rallied  marvellously'  149 

"  And  canst  thou  strike  ev'n  me  ?  "  the  swimmer  said, 
As  rose  above  the  waves  the  deadly  eyes, 
Arms  flecked  with  mouths  that  kissed  in  hellish  wise, 

Quivering  in  hate  around  a  hateful  head. — 
I  saw  him  fight  old  Envy's  sorceries : 

I  saw  him  sink :   the  man  I  loved  is  dead  ! 

Here  we  get  something  quite  new  in  satire — something 
in  which  poetry,  fancy,  hatred,  and  contempt,  are 
mingled.  The  sonnet  appeared  first  in  the  '  Athen- 
aeum,' and  afterwards  in  '  The  Coming  of  Love.'  If 
Buchanan  or  any  special  individual  was  meant,  I  doubt 
whether  any  man  has  a  moral  right  to  speak  about 
another  man  in  such  terms  as  these. 

All  the  friends  of  Rossetti  have  remarked  upon  the 
extraordinary  influence  exercised  upon  him  by  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton.  Lady  Mount  Temple,  a  great  friend 
of  the  painter-poet,  used  to  tell  how  when  she  was  in  his 
studio  and  found  him  in  a  state  of  great  dejection,  as  was 
so  frequently  the  case,  she  would  notice  that  Rossetti's 
face  would  suddenly  brighten  up  on  hearing  a  light  foot- 
fall in  the  hall — the  footfall  of  his  friend,  who  had  entered 
with  his  latch-key — and  how  from  that  moment  Rossetti 
would  be  another  man.  Rossetti's  own  relatives  have 
recorded  the  same  influence.  I  have  often  thought  that 
the  most  touching  thing  in  Mr.  W.  M.  Rossetti's  beau- 
tiful monograph  of  his  brother  is  the  following  extract 
from  his  aged  mother's  diary  at  Birchington-on-Sea, 
when  the  poet  is  dying  : — 

'  March  28,  Tuesday.  Mr.  Watts  came  down ; 
Gabriel  rallied  marvellously. 

This  is  the  last  cheerful  item  which  it  is  allowed  me 
to  record  concerning  my  brother  ;  I  am  glad  that  it 
stands  associated  with  the  name  of  Theodore  Watts.' 


150  Dante   Gabriel  Rossetti 

Here  is  another  excerpt  from  the  brother's  diary  : — 

'  Gabriel  had,  just  before  Shields  entered  the  draw- 
ing-room for  me,  given  two  violent  cries,  and  had  a  con- 
vulsive fit,  very  sharp  and  distorting  the  face,  followed 
by  collapse.  All  this  passed  without  my  personal  cog- 
nizance. He  died  9.31  p.m.  ;  the  others — ^Watts, 
mother,  Christina,  and  nurse,  in  room ;  Caine  and 
Shields  in  and  out ;  Watts  at  Gabriel's  right  side,  partly 
supporting  him.' 

That  Mr.  Watts  -  Dunton's  influence  over  Rossetti 
extended  even  to  his  art  as  a  poet  is  shown  by  Mr. 
Benson's  words  already  quoted.  I  must  also  quote  the 
testimony  of  Mr.  Hall  Caine,  who  says,  in  his  *  Recol- 
lections ' : — 

"  Rossetti,  throughout  the  period  of  my  acquaintance 
with  him,  seemed  to  me  always  peculiarly  and,  if^I  may 
be  permitted  to  say  so  without  offence,  strangely  liable 
to  Mr.  Watts'  influence  in  his  critical  estimates ;  and 
the  case  instanced  was  perhaps  the  only  one  in  which  I 
knew  him  to  resist  Mr.  Watts's  opinion  upon  a  matter  of 
poetical  criticism,  which  he  considered  to  be  almost 
final,  as  his  letters  to  me,  printed  in  Chapter  VHI  of  this 
volume,  will  show.  I  had  a  striking  instance  of  this,  and 
of  the  real  modesty  of  the  man  whom  I  had  heard  and 
still  hear  spoken  of  as  the  most  arrogant  man  of  genius 
of  his  day,  on  one  of  the  first  occasions  of  my  seeing  him. 
He  read  out  to  me  an  additional  stanza  to  the  beautiful 
poem  '  Cloud  Confines.'  As  he  read  it,  I  thought  it 
very  fine,  and  he  evidently  was  very  fond  of  it  himself. 
But  he  surprised  me  by  saying  that  he  should  not  print 
it.     On  my  asking  him  why,  he  said  : 


Cloud   Confines  1 5 1 

*  Watts,  though  he  admits  its  beauty,  thinks  the 
poem  would  be  better  without  it.' 

*  Well,  but  you  like  it  yourself,'  said  I. 

*  Yes,'  he  replied,  '  but  in  a  question  of  gain  or  loss 
to  a  poem  I  feel  that  Watts  must  be  right.' 

And  the  poem  appeared  in  '  Ballads  and  Sonnets  ' 
without  the  stanza  in  question." 

Here  is  another  beautiful  passage  from  Mr.  Hall  Caine's 
'  Recollections ' — a  passage  which  speaks  as  much  for  the 
writer  as  for  the  object  of  his  enthusiasm  : — 

"  As  to  Mr.  Theodore  Watts,  whose  brotherly  devo- 
tion to  him  and  beneficial  influence  over  him  from  that 
time  forward  are  so  well  known,  this  must  be  considered 
by  those  who  witnessed  it  to  be  almost  without  precedent 
or  parallel  even  in  the  beautiful  story  of  literary  friend- 
ships, and  it  does  as  much  honour  to  the  one  as  to  the 
other.  No  light  matter  it  must  have  been  to  lay  aside 
one's  own  long-cherished  life-work  and  literary  ambi- 
tions to  be  Rossetti's  closest  friend  and  brother,  at  a 
moment  like  the  present,  when  he  imagined  the  world 
to  be  conspiring  aginst  him  ;  but  through  these  evil  days, 
and  long  after  them,  down  to  his  death,  the  friend  that 
clung  closer  than  a  brother  was  with  him,  as  he  himself 
said,  to  protect,  to  soothe,  to  comfort,  to  divert,  to  in- 
terest and  inspire  him — asking,  meantime,  no  better 
reward  than  the  knowledge  that  a  noble  mind  and  nature 
was  by  such  sacrifice  lifted  out  of  sorrow.  Among  the 
world's  great  men  the  greatest  are  sometimes  those  whose 
names  are  least  on  our  lips,  and  this  is  because  selfish  aims 
have  been  so  subordinate  in  their  lives  to  the  welfare  of 
others  as  to  leave  no  time  for  the  personal  achievements 
that   win   personal   distinction ;     but   when   the   world 


152  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti 

comes  to  the  knowledge  of  the  price  that  has  been  paid 
for  the  devotion  that  enables  others  to  enjoy  their  re- 
nown, shall  it  not  reward  with  a  double  meed  of  grati- 
tude the  fine  spirits  to  whom  ambition  has  been  as  no- 
thing against  fidelity  of  friendship.  Among  the  latest 
words  I  heard  from  Rossetti  was  this  :  '  Watts  is  a  hero 
of  friendship  '  ;  and  indeed,  he  has  displayed  his  capacity 
for  participation  in  the  noblest  part  of  comradeship,  that 
part,  namely,  which  is  far  above  the  mere  traffic  that  too 
often  goes  by  the  name,  and  wherein  self-love  always 
counts  upon  being  the  gainer.  If  in  the  end  it  should 
appear  that  he  has  in  his  own  person  done  less  than 
might  have  been  hoped  for  from  one  possessed  of  his 
splendid  gifts,  let  it  not  be  overlooked  that  he  has  influ- 
enced in  a  quite  incalculable  degree,  and  influenced  for 
good,  several  of  the  foremost  among  those  who  in  their 
turn  have  influenced  the  age.  As  Rossetti's  faithful 
friend  and  gifted  medical  adviser,  Mr.  John  Marshall, 
has  often  declared,  there  were  periods  when  Rossetti's 
very  life  may  be  said  to  have  hung  upon  Mr.  Watts' 
power  to  cheer  and  soothe." 

This  anecdote  is  also  told  by  Mr.  Caine  : — 

"  Immediately  upon  the  publication  of  his  first  vol- 
ume, and  incited  thereto  by  the  early  success  of  it,  he 
had  written  the  poem  '  Rose  Mary,'  as  well  as  two  lyrics 
published  at  the  time  in  '  The  Fortnightly  Review  '  ; 
but  he  suffered  so  seriously  from  the  subsequent  assaults 
of  criticism,  that  he  seemed  definitely  to  lay  aside  all  hope 
of  producing  further  poetry,  and,  indeed,  to  become 
possessed  of  the  delusion  that  he  had  for  ever  lost  all 
power  of  doing  so.  It  is  an  interesting  fact,  well  known 
in  his  own  literary  circle,  that  his  taking  up  poetry  afresh 
was  the  result  of  a  fortuitous  occurrence.     After  one  of 


A  Pious  Fraud  153 

his  most  serious  illnesses,  and  in  the  hope  of  drawing  off 
his  attention  from  himself,  and  from  the  gloomy  fore- 
bodings which  in  an  invalid's  mind  usually  gather  about 
his  own  too  absorbing  personality,  a  friend  prevailed  upon 
him,  with  infinite  solicitation,  to  try  his  hand  afresh  at 
a  sonnet.  The  outcome  was  an  effort  so  feeble  as  to  be 
all  but  unrecognizable  as  the  work  of  the  author  of  the 
sonnets  of  '  The  House  of  Life,'  but,  with  more  shrewd- 
ness and  friendliness  (on  this  occasion)  than  frankness, 
the  critic  lavished  measureless  praise  upon  it  and  urged 
the  poet  to  renewed  exertion.  One  by  one,  at  longer  or 
shorter  intervals,  sonnets  were  written,  and  this  exercise 
did  more  towards  his  recovery  than  any  other  medicine, 
with  the  result  besides  that  Rossetti  eventually  regained 
all  his  old  dexterity  and  mastery  of  hand.  The  artifice 
had  succeeded  beyond  every  expectation  formed  of  it, 
serving,  indeed,  the  twofold  end  of  improving  the  in- 
valid's health  by  preventing  his  brooding  over  unhealthy 
matters,  and  increasing  the  number  of  his  accom- 
plished works.  Encouraged  by  such  results,  the  friend 
went  on  to  induce  Rossetti  to  write  a  ballad,  and  this 
purpose  he  finally  achieved  by  challenging  the  poet's 
ability  to  compose  in  the  simple,  direct,  and  emphatic 
style,  which  is  the  style  of  the  ballad  proper,  as  distin- 
guished from  the  elaborate,  ornate,  and  condensed  dic- 
tion which  he  had  hitherto  worked  in.  Put  upon  his 
mettle,  the  outcome  of  this  second  artifice  practised 
upon  him  was  that  he  wrote  '  The  White  Ship  '  and 
afterwards  '  The  King's  Tragedy.' 

Thus  was  Rossetti  already  immersed  in  this  revived 
occupation  of  poetic  composition,  and  had  recovered  a 
healthy  tone  of  body,  before  he  became  conscious  of 
what  was  being  done  with  him.  It  is  a  further  amusing 
fact  that  one  day  he  requested  to  be  shown  the  first 


154  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti 

sonnet  which,  in  view  of  the  praise  lavished  upon  it  by 
the  friend  on  whose  judgment  he  reposed,  had  encour- 
aged him  to  renewed  effort.  The  sonnet  was  bad  :  the 
critic  knew  it  was  bad,  and  had  from  the  first  hour  of  its 
production  kept  it  carefully  out  of  sight,  and  was  now 
more  than  ever  unwilling  to  show  it.  Eventually,  how- 
ever, by  reason  of  ceaseless  importunity,  he  returned  it 
to  its  author,  who,  upon  reading  it,  cried :  *  You  fraud  ! 
You  said  this  sonnet  was  good,  and  it's  the  worst  I  ever 
wrote  !  '  *  The  worst  ever  written  would  perhaps  be  a 
truer  criticism,'  was  the  reply,  as  the  studio  resounded 
with  a  hearty  laugh,  and  the  poem  was  committed  to  the 
flames.  It  would  appear  that  to  this  occurrence  we 
probably  owe  a  large  portion  of  the  contents  of  the  vol- 
ume of  1881." 

Mr.  William  Rossetti  is  ever  eager  to  testify  to  the 
beneficent  effect  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  intimacy  upon 
his  brother  ;  and  quite  lately  Madox  Brown's  grandson, 
Mr.  Ford  Madox  Hueffer,  who,  from  his  connection 
with  the  Rossetti  family,  speaks  with  great  authority, 
wrote  :  '  In  1873  came  Mr.  Theodore  Watts,  without 
whose  practical  friendship  and  advice,  and  without 
whose  literary  aids  and  sustenance,  life  would  have  been 
from  thenceforth  an  impracticable  affair  for  Rossetti.' 
Mr.  Hueffer  speaks  of  the  great  change  that  came  over 
Rossetti's  work  when  he  wrote  '  The  King's  Tragedy ' 
and  '  The  White  Ship  '  :— 

"  It  should  be  pointed  out  that  *  The  White  Ship  ' 
was  one  of  Rossetti's  last  works,  and  that  in  it  he  was 
aiming  at  simplicity  of  narration,  under  the  advice  of 
Mr.  Theodore  Watts.  In  this  he  was  undoubtedly  on 
the  right  track,  and  the  '  rhymed  chronicles '  might  have 


Rossetti  and  Paragraph-mongers  155 

disappeared  had  Rossetti  lived  long  enough  to  revise  the 
poem  as  sedulously  as  he  did  his  earlier  work,  and  to  re- 
vise it  with  the  knowledge  of  narrative-technique  that 
the  greater  part  of  the  poem  shows  was  coming  to  be  his." 

It  was  impossible  for  a  man  of  genius  to  live  so  secluded 
a  life  as  Rossetti  lived  at  Cheyne  Walk  and  at  Kelmscott 
for  several  years,  without  wild,  unauthenticated  stories 
getting  about  concerning  him.  Among  other  things 
Rossetti,  whose  courtesy  and  charm  of  manner  were,  I 
believe,  proverbial,  was  now  charged  with  a  rudeness,  or 
rather  boorishness  like  that  which  with  equal  injustice, 
apparently,  is  now  being  attributed  to  Tennyson.  Stories 
got  into  print  about  his  rude  bearing  towards  people, 
sometimes  towards  ladies  of  the  most  exalted  position. 
And  these  apocryphal  and  disparaging  legends  would  no 
doubt  have  been  still  more  numerous  and  still  more  offen- 
sive, had  it  not  been  for  the  influence  of  his  watchful  and 
powerful  friend.  Here  is  an  interesting  letter  which 
Rossetti  addressed  to  the  '  World,'  and  which  shows  the 
close  relations  between  him  and  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  : — 

"16  Cheyne  Walk,  Chelsea,  S.W. 
December  28,  1878. 
My  attention  has  been  directed  to  the  following 
paragraph  which  has  appeared  in  the  newspapers  :  '  A 
very  disagreeable  story  is  told  about  a  neighbour  of 
Mr.  Whistler's,  whose  works  are  not  exhibited  to  the 
vulgar  herd  ;  the  Princess  Louise  in  her  zeal  therefore, 
graciously  sought  them  at  the  artist's  studio,  but  was 
rebuffed  by  a  '  Not  at  home  '  and  an  intimation  that  he 
was  not  at  the  beck  and  call  of  princesses.  I  trust  it  is 
not  true,'  continues  the  writer  of  the  paragraph,  *  that 
so  medievally  minded  a  gentleman  is  really  a  stranger 


156  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti 

to  that  generous  loyalty  to  rank  and  sex,  that  dignified 
obedience,'  etc. 

The  story  is  certainly  disagreeable  enough ;  but  if 
I  am  pointed  out  as  the  '  near  neighbour  of  Mr.  Whist- 
ler's '  who  rebuffed,  in  this  rude  fashion,  the  Princess 
Louise,  I  can  only  say  that  it  is  a  canard  devoid  of  the 
smallest  nucleus  of  truth.  Her  Royal  Highness  has  never 
called  upon  me,  and  I  know  of  only  two  occasions  when 
she  has  expressed  a  wish  to  do  so.  Some  years  ago  Mr. 
Theodore  Martin  spoke  to  me  upon  the  subject,  but  I 
was  at  that  time  engaged  upon  an  important  work,  and 
the  delays  thence  arising  caused  the  matter  to  slip 
through.  And  I  heard  no  more  upon  the  subject  till 
last  summer,  when  Mr.  Theodore  Watts  told  me  that 
the  Princess,  in  conversation,  had  mentioned  my  name 
to  him,  and  that  he  had  then  assured  her  that  I  should 
feel  '  honoured  and  charmed  to  see  her,'  and  suggested 
her  making  an  appointment.  Her  Royal  Highness  knew 
that  Mr.  Watts,  as  one  of  my  most  intimate  friends, 
would  not  have  thus  expressed  himself  without  feeling 
fully  warranted  in  so  doing  ;  and  had  she  called  she 
would  not,  I  trust,  have  found  me  wanting  in  that 
*  generous  loyalty  '  which  is  due,  not  more  to  her  exalted 
position,  than  to  her  well-known  charm  of  character  and 
artistic  gifts.  It  is  true  that  I  do  not  run  after  great 
people  on  account  of  their  mere  social  position,  but  I  am, 
I  hope,  never  rude  to  them  ;  and  the  man  who  could 
rebuff  the  Princess  Louise  must  be  a  curmudgeon  in- 
deed. 

D.  G.  ROSSETTI." 

At  the  very  juncture  in  question  Lord  Lome  was 
suddenly  and  unexpectedly  appointed  Governor-Gen- 
eral of  Canada,  and,  leaving  England,  Her  Royal  High- 


A   Grave  by  the  Sea  157 

ness  did  not  return  until  Rossetti's  health  had  somewhat 
suddenly  broken  down,  and  it  was  impossible  for  him  to 
see  any  but  his  most  intimate  friends. 

My  account  of  the  friendship  between  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  and  Rossetti  would  not  be  complete  without  the 
poem  entitled,  '  A  Grave  by  the  Sea,'  which  I  think 
may  be  placed  beside  Milton's  '  Lycidas,'  Shelley's 
*  Adonais,'  Matthew  Arnold's  '  Thyrsis,'  and  Swin- 
burne's '  Ave  Atque  Vale,'  as  one  of  the  noblest  elegies 
in  our  literature  : — 

A  GRAVE  BY  THE  SEA 

I 

Yon  sightless  poet  ^  whom  thou  leav'st  behind, 

Sightless  and  trembling  like  a  storm-struck  tree, 

Above  the  grave  he  feels  but  cannot  see, 
Save  with  the  vision  Sorrow  lends  the  mind. 
Is  he  indeed  the  loneliest  of  mankind  ? 

Ah  no  ! — For  all  his  sobs,  he  seems  to  me 

Less  lonely  standing  there,  and  nearer  thee, 
Than  I — less  lonely,  nearer — standing  blind  !  .^ 

Free  from  the  day,  and  piercing  Life's  disguise 
That  needs  must  partly  enveil  true  heart  from  heart, 
His  inner  eyes  may  see  thee  as  thou  art 

In  Memory's  land — see  thee  beneath  the  skies 

Lit  by  thy  brow — by  those  beloved  eyes. 

While  I  stand  by  him  in  a  world  apart.  :'. 

II 

I  stand  like  her  who  on  the  glittering  Rhine 
Saw  that  strange  swan  which  drew  a  faery  boat 
Where  shone  a  knight  whose  radiant  forehead  smote 

Her  soul  with  light  and  made  her  blue  eyes  shine 

'  *  Philip  Bourke  Marston,  , 


158  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti 

For  many  a  day  with  sights  that  seemed  divine, 
Till  that  false  swan  returned  and  arched  his  throat 
In  pride,  and  called  him,  and  she  saw  him  float 

Adown  the  stream  :   I  stand  Hke  her  and  pine. 

I  stand  like  her,  for  she,  and  only  she. 
Might  know  my  loneliness  for  want  of  thee. 

Light  swam  into  her  soul,  she  asked  not  whence, 
Filled  it  with  joy  no  clouds  of  life  could  smother, 

And  then,  departing  like  a  vision  thence. 
Left  her  more  lonely  than  the  blind,  my  brother. 


Ill 

Last  night  Death  whispered  :  '  Death  is  but  the  name 
Man  gives  the  Power  which  lends  him  life  and  light, 
And  then,  returning  past  the  coast  of  night. 

Takes  what  it  lent  to  shores  from  whence  it  came. 

What  balm  in  knowing  the  dark  doth  but  reclaim 
The  sun  it  lent,  if  day  hath  taken  flight  ? 
Art  thou  not  vanished — vanished  from  my  sight — 

Though  somewhere  shining,  vanished  all  the  same  f 

With  Nature  dumb,  save  for  the  billows'  moan. 

Engirt  by  men  I  love,  yet  desolate — 
Standing  with  brothers  here,  yet  dazed  and  lone, 

King'd  by  my  sorrow,'^made^by  grief  so  great 
That  man's  voice  murmurs  Hke  an  insect's  drone — 

What  balm,  I  ask,  in  knowing  that  Death  is  Fate  i 


IV 

Last  night  Death  whispered  :  '  Life's  purblind  procession, 
Flickering  with  blazon  of  the  human  story — 
Time's  fen-flame  over  Death's  dark  territory — 

Will  leave  no  trail,  no  sign  of  Life's  aggression. 

Yon  moon  that  strikes  the  pane,  the  stars  in  session, 
Are  weak  as  Man  they  mock  with  fleeting  glory. 
Since  Life  is  only  Death's  frail  feudatory. 

How  shall  love  hold  of  Fate  in  true  possession  ?  ' 


'Lite's   Purblind   Procession'  159 

I  answered  thus :  '  If  Friendship's  isle  of  palm 

Is  but  a  vision,  every  loveliest  leaf, 
Can  Knovi^ledge  of  its  mockery  soothe  and  calm  -• 

This  soul  of  mine  in  this  most  fiery  grief  ? 

If  Love  but  holds  of  Life  through  Death  in  fief, 
What  balm  in  knowing  that  Love  is  Death's — what  balm  ?  ' 

V 

Yea,  thus  I  boldly  answered  Death — even  I 

Who  have  for  boon — who  have  for  deathless  dower — 
Thy  love,  dear  friend,  which  broods,  a  magic  power. 

Filling  -with,  music  earth  and  sea  and  sky  : 

'  O  Death,'  I  said,  '  not  Love,  but  thou  shalt  die  ; 
For,  this  I  know,  though  thine  is  now  the  hour. 
And  thine  these  angry  clouds  of  doom  that  lour, 

Death  striking  Love  but  strikes  to  deify.' 

Yet  while  I  spoke  I  sighed  in  loneliness. 

For  strange  seemed  Man,  and  Life  seemed  comfortless, 

And  night,  whom  we  two  loved,  seemed  strange  and  dumb  ; 
And,  waiting  tiU  the  dawn  the  promised  sign, 
I  watched — I  listened  for  that  voice  of  thine, 

Though  Reason  said  :  '  Nor  voice  nor  face  can  come.' 

BiRCHINGTON, 

Eastertide,  1882,  '  ' 

Mr.    Watts-Dunton    has   written    many    magnificent 
sonnets,  but  the  sonnet  in  this  sequence  beginning — 

Last  night  Death  whispered  :  '  Life's  purblind  procession,' 

is,  I  think,  the  finest  of  them  all.  The  imaginative  concep- 
tion packed  into  these  fourteen  lines  is  cosmic  in  its  sweep. 
In  the  metrical  scheme  the  feminine  rhymes  of  the  octave 
play  a  very  important  part.  They  suggest  pathetic  sus- 
pense, mystery,  yearning,  hope,  fear;  they  ask,  they  wonder, 
they  falter.  But  in  the  sestet  the  words  of  destiny  are 
calmly  and  coldly  pronounced,  and  every  rhyme  clinches 


i6o  Dante   Gabriel    Rossetti 

the  voice  of  doom,  until  the  uttermost  deep  of  despair 
is  sounded  in  the  iterated  cry  of  the  last  line.  The  crafts- 
manship throughout  is  masterly.  There  is,  indeed,  one 
line  which  is  not  unworthy  of  being  ranked  with  the 
great  lines  of  English  poetry : 

Yon  moon  that  strikes  the  pane,  the  stars  in  session. 

Here  by  a  bold  use  of  the  simple  verb  *  strikes  '  a  whole 
poem  is  hammered  into  six  words.  As  to  the  interesting 
question  of  feminine  rhymes,  while  I  admit  that  they 
should  never  be  used  without  an  emotional  mandate,  I 
think  that  here  it  is  overwhelming. 

I  have  tried  to  show  the  beauty  of  the  friendship  be- 
tween these  two  rare  spirits  by  means  of  other  testi- 
mony than  my  own,  for  although  I  have  been  granted  the 
honour  of  knowing  Rossetti's  *  friend  of  friends,'  I 
missed  the  equal  honour  of  knowing  Rossetti,  save  through 
that  '  friend  of  friends.'  But  to  know  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
seems  almost  like  knowing  Rossetti,  for  when  at  The  Pines 
he  begins  to  recall  those  golden  hours  when  the  poets 
used  to  hold  converse,  the  soul  of  Rossetti  seems  to  come 
back  from  the  land  of  shadows,  as  his  friend  depicts  his 
winsome  ways,  his  nobility  of  heart,  his  generous  interest  in 
the  work  of  others,  that  lovableness  of  nature  and  charm 
of  personality  which,  if  we  are  to  believe  Mr.  Ford  Madox 
Hueffer,  worked,  in  some  degree,  ill  for  the  poet.  Mr. 
Hueffer,  who,  as  a  family  connection,  may  be  supposed 
to  represent  the  family  tradition  about  '  Gabriel,'  has 
some  striking  and  pregnant  words  upon  the  injurious 
effect  of  Rossetti's  being  brought  so  much  into  contact 
with   admirers  from  the  time  when  Mr.  Meredith  and 

Mr.  Swinburne  were  his  housemates  at  Cheyne  Walk. 

"  Then    came    the   '  Pre-Raphaelite '    poets   like   Philip 


Rossetti's  Green   Dining-room  i6i 

Marston,  O'Shaughnessy,  and  ^B.  V.'  Afterwards  there 
came  a  whole  host  of  young  men  like  Mr.  William  Sharp, 
who  were  serious  admirers,  and  to-day  are  in  their  places 
or  are  dead  or  forgotten  ;  and  others  again  who  came 
for  the  '  pickings.'  They  were  all  more  or  less  enthu- 
siasts." 

Mr.  Hake,  in  '  Notes  and  Queries '  (June  7,  1902), 
says  : 

"  With  regard  to  the  green  room  in  which  Winifred 
took  her  first  breakfast  at  '  Hurstcote,'  I  am  a  little  in 
confusion.  It  seems  to  me  more  like  the  green  dining- 
room  in  Cheyne  Walk,  decorated  with  antique  mirrors, 
which  was  painted  by  Dunn,  showing  Rossetti  reading 
his  poems  aloud.  This  is  the  only  portrait  of  Rossetti 
that  really  calls  up  the  man  before  me.  As  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  is  the  owner  of  Dunn's  drawing,  and  as  so  many 
people  want  to  see  what  Rossetti's  famous  Chelsea  house 
was  like  inside,  it  is  a  pity  he  does  not  give  it  as  a  frontis- 
piece to  some  future  edition  of  '  Aylwin.'  Unfortunately, 
Mr.  G.  F.  Watts's  picture,  now  in  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery,  was  never  finished,  and  I  never  saw  upon  Ros- 
setti's face  the  dull,  heavy  expression  which  that  portrait 
wears.  I  think  the  poet  told  me  that  he  had  given  the 
painter  only  one  or  two  sittings.  As  to  the  photographs, 
none  of  them  is  really  satisfactory." 

I  am  fortunate  in  being  able  to  reproduce  here  the 
picture  of  the  famous  '  Green  Dining  Room '  at  16 
Cheyne  Walk,  to  which  Mr.  Hake  refers.  Mr.  Hake 
also  writes  in  the  same  article  :  "  With  regard  to  the 
two  circular  mirrors  surrounded  by  painted  designs 
telling  the  story  of  the  Holy  Grail, '  in  old  black  oak 
frames  carved  with  knights  at  tilt,'  I  do  not  remember 
seeing  these  there.     But  they  are  evidently  the  mirrors 

W.-D.  II 


1 62  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti 

decorated  with  copies  by  Dunn  of  the  lost  Holy  Grail 
frescoes  once  existing  on  the  walls  of  the  Union  Reading- 
Room  at  Oxford.  These  beautiful  decorations  I  have 
seen  at  '  The  Pines,'  but  not  elsewhere."  I  am  sure 
that  my  readers  will  be  interested  in  the  photograph 
of  one  of  these  famous  mirrors,  which  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
has  generously  permitted  to  be  specially  taken  for  this 
book. 

And  here  again  I  must  draw  upon  Dr.  Gordon  Hake's 
fascinating  book  of  poetry,  *  The  New  Day,'  which 
must  live,  if  only  for  its  reminiscences  of  the  life  poetic 
lived  at  Chelsea,  Kelmscott,  and  Bognor  : — 

THE    NEW    DAY 
I 

In  the  unbroken  silence  of  the  mind 

Thoughts  creep  about  us,  seeming  not  to  move, 
And  life  is  back  among  the  days  behind — 

The  spectral  days  of  that  lamented  love — 
Days  vi^hose  romance  can  never  be  repeated. 

The  sun  of  Kelmscott  through  the  foliage  gleaming. 
We  see  him,  life-like,  at  his  easel  seated, 

His  voice,  his  brush,  with  rival  wonders  teeming. 
These  vanished  hours,  where  are  they  stored  away  ? 

Hear  we  the  voice,  or  but  its  lingering  tone  ? 
Its  utterances  are  swallowed  up  in  day ; 

The  gabled  house,  the  mighty  master  gone. 
Yet  are  they  ours :  the  stranger  at  the  hall — 
What  dreams  he  of  the  days  we  there  recall  ? 

II 

O,  happy  days  with  him  who  once  so  loved  us ! 

We  loved  as  brothers,  with  a  single  heart, 
The  man  whose  iris-woven  pictures  moved  us 

From  Nature  to  her  blazoned  shadow — Art. 
How  often  did  we  trace  the  nestling  Thames 

From  humblest  waters  on  his  course  of  might, 


0\H    OF    THE    CaKVM)    MiRROKS    AT    'TlIE    PiNKS,'    DECORATED    WITH     DlNx's 
COPY    OF    THE    LOST    RoSSETTl     FrESCOES    AT    THE    OxFORD    L  NIOX 

Ph'j..  Py,lc,  Pulntx 


The  Poets  Together  163 

Down  where  the  weir  the  bursting  current  stems — 

There  sat  till  evening  grew  to  balmy  night, 
Veiling  the  weir  whose  roar  recalled  the  strand 

Where  we  had  listened  to  the  wave-lipped  sea, 
That  seemed  to  utter  plaudits  while  we  planned 

Triumphal  labours  of  the  day  to  be. 
The  words  were  his :  '  Such  love  can  never  die  ; ' 
The  grief  was  ours  when  he  no  more  was  nigh. 

Ill 

Like  some  sweet  water-bell,  the  tinkling  rill 

Still  calls  the  flowers  upon  its  misty  bank 
To  stoop  into  the  stream  and  drink  their  fill. 

And  still  the  shapeless  rushes,  green  and  rank, 
Seem  lounging  in  their  pride  round  those  retreats. 

Watching  slim  willows  dip  their  thirsty  spray. 
Slowly  a  loosened  weed  another  meets ; 

They  stop,  like  strangers,  neither  giving  way. 
We  are  here  surely  if  the  world,  forgot. 

Glides  from  our  sight  into  the  charm,  unbidden  ; 
We  are  here  surely  at  this  witching  spot, — 

Though  Nature  in  the  reverie  is  hidden. 
A  spell  so  holds  our  captive  eyes  in  thrall. 
It  is  as  if  a  play  pervaded  all. 

IV 

Sitting  with  him,  his  tones  as  Petrarch's  tender, 

With  many  a  speaking  vision  on  the  wall, 
The  fire,  a-blaze,  flashing  the  studio  fender, 

Closed  in  from  London  shouts  and  ceaseless  brawl — 
'Twas  you  brought  Nature  to  the  visiting. 

Till  she  herself  seemed  breathing  in  the  room. 
And  Art  grew  fragrant  in  the  glow  of  spring 

With  homely  scents  of  gorse  and  heather  bloom. 
Or  sunbeams  shone  by  many  an  Alpine  fountain, 

Fed  by  the  waters  of  the  forest  stream  ; 
Or  glacier-glories  in  the  rock-girt  mountain. 

Where  they  so  often  fed  the  poet's  dream ; 
Or  else  was  mingled  the  rough  billow's  glee 
With  cries  of  petrels  on  a  sullen  sea. 


164  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti 

V 

Remember  how  we  roamed  the  Channel's  shore, 

And  read  aloud  our  verses,  each  in  turn, 
While  rhythmic  waves  to  us  their  music  bore, 

And  foam-flakes  leapt  from  out  the  rocky  churn. 
Then  oft  with  glowing  eyes  you  strove  to  capture 

The  potent  word  that  makes  a  thought  abiding, 
And  wings  it  upward  to  its  place  of  rapture. 

While  we  discoursed  to  Nature,  she  presiding. 
Then  would  the  poet-painter  gaze  in  wonder 

That  art  knew  not  the  mighty  reverie 
That  moves  earth's  spirit  and  her  orb  asunder, 

While  ocean's  depths,  even,  seem  a  shallow  sea. 
Yet  with  rare  genius  could  his  hand  impart 
His  own  far-searching  poesy  to  art. 

The  fourth  of  these  exquisite  sonnets  delights  me  most 
of  all.  It  makes  me  see  the  recluse  in  his  studio,  sitting 
snugly  with  his  feet  in  the  fender,  when  suddenly  the  door 
opens  and  the  poet  of  Nature  brings  with  him  a  new 
atmosphere  —  the  salt  atmosphere  which  envelops 
*  Mother  Carey's  Chicken,'  and  the  attenuated  moun- 
tain air  of  Natura  Benigna.  And  yet  perhaps  the 
description  of 

'  The  sun  of  Kelmscott  through  the  foliage  gleaming ' 

is  equally  fascinating. 

Mr.  Watts-Dunton  himself,  with  a  stronger  hand  and 
more  vigorous  brush,  has  in  his  sonnet  '  The  Shadow 
on  the  Window  Blind,'  made  Kelmscott  Manor  and  the 
poetic  life  lived  there  still  more  memorable  : — 

Within  this  thicket's  every  leafy  lair 
A  song-bird  sleeps  :  the  very  rooks  are  dumb, 
Though  red  behind  their  nests  the  moon  has  swum — 

But  still  I  see  that  shadow  writing  there  ! — 

Poet,  behind   yon  casement's  ruddy  square, 


Henry   Aylwin   and   Cheyne   Walk       165 

Whose  shadow  tells  me  why  you  do  not  come — 
Rhyming  and  chiming  of  thine  insect-hum, 
Flying  and  singing  through  thine  inch  of  air — 

Come  thither,  where  on  grass  and  flower  and  leaf 
Gleams  Nature's  scripture,  putting  Man's  to  shame  : 

'  Thy  day,'  she  says,  '  is  all  too  rich  and  brief — 
Thy  game  of  life  too  wonderful  a  game — 

To  give  to  Art  entirely  or  in  chief  : 

Drink  of  these  dews — sweeter  than  wine  of  Fame.' 

*  Aylwin,'  too,  is  full  of  vivid  pictures  of  Rossetti  at 
Chelsea  and  Kelmscott. 

The  following  description  of  the  famous  house  and 
garden,  16  Cheyne  Walk,  has  been  declared  by  one  of 
Rossetti's  most  intimate  friends  to  be  marvellously 
graphic  and  true  : — 

"  On  sending  in  my  card  I  was  shown  at  once  into  the 
studio,  and  after  threading  my  way  between  some  pieces 
of  massive  furniture  and  pictures  upon  easels,  I  found 
D'Arcy  lolling  lazily  upon  a  huge  sofa.  Seeing  that  he 
was  not  alone,  I  was  about  to  withdraw,  for  I  was  in  no 
mood  to  meet  strangers.  However,  he  sprang  up  and 
introduced  me  to  his  guest,  whom  he  called  Symonds, 
an  elegant-looking  man  in  a  peculiar  kind  of  evening 
dress,  who,  as  I  afterwards  learnt,  was  one  of  Mr.  D'Arcy's 
chief  buyers.     This  gentleman  bowed  stiffly  to  me. 

He  did  not  stay  long  ;  indeed,  it  was  evident  that 
the  appearance  of  a  stranger  somewhat  disconcerted  him. 

After  he  was  gone  D'Arcy  said  :  *  A  good  fellow  ! 
One  of  my  most  important  buyers.  I  should  like  you  to 
know  him,  for  you  and  I  are  going  to  be  friends,  I  hope.' 

'  He  seems  very  fond  of  pictures,'  I  said. 

*  A  man  of  great  taste,  with  a  real  love  of  art  and 
music' 


1 66  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti 

A  little  while  after  this  gentleman's  departure,  in 
came  De  Castro,  who  had  driven  up  in  a  hansom.  I  cer- 
tainly saw  a  flash  of  anger  in  his  eyes  as  he  recognized 
me,  but  it  vanished  like  lightning,  and  his  manner  be- 
came cordiality  itself.  Late  as  it  was  (it  was  nearly 
twelve),  he  pulled  out  his  cigarette  case,  and  evidently 
intended  to  begin  the  evening.  As  soon  as  he  was  told 
that  Mr.  Symonds  had  been  there,  he  began  to  talk  about 
him  in  a  disparaging  manner.  Evidently  his  metier 
was,  as  I  had  surmised,  that  of  a  professional  talker. 
Talk  was  his  stock-in-trade. 

The  night  wore  on  and  De  Castro,  in  the  intervals 
of  his  talk,  kept  pulling  out  his  watch.  It  was  evident 
that  he  wanted  to  be  going,  but  was  reluctant  to  leave  me 
there.  For  my  part,  I  frequently  rose  to  go,  but  on 
getting  a  sign  from  D'Arcy  that  he  wished  me  to  stay  I 
sat  down  again.     At  last  D'Arcy  said  : 

'  You  had  better  go  now,  De  Castro — you  have  kept 
that  hansom  outside  for  more  than  an  hour  and  a  half  ; 
and  besides,  if  you  stay  still  daylight  our  friend  here  will 
stay  longer,  for  I  want  to  talk  with  him  alone.' 

De  Castro  got  up  with  a  laugh  that  seemed  genuine 
enough,  and  left  us. 

D'Arcy,  who  was  still  on  the  sofa,  then  lapsed  into  a 
silence  that  became  after  a  while  rather  awkward.  He 
lay  there,  gazing  abstractedly  at  the  fireplace. 

'  Some  of  my  friends  call  me,  as  you  heard  De  Castro 
say  the  other  night,  Haroun-al-Raschid,  and  I  suppose  I 
am  like  him  in  some  things.  I  am  a  bad  sleeper,  and  to 
be  amused  by  De  Castro  when  I  can't  sleep  is  the  chief  of 
blessings.  De  Castro,  however,  is  not  so  bad  as  he  seems. 
A  man  may  be  a  scandal-monger  without  being  really 
malignant.  I  have  known  him  go  out  of  his  way  to  do  a 
struggling  man  a  service.' 


Rossetti's  Zoological   Gardens  167 

Next  morning,  after  I  had  finished  my  solitary 
breakfast,  I  asked  the  servant  if  Mr.  D'Arcy  had  yet 
risen.  On  being  told  that  he  had  not,  I  went  downstairs 
into  the  studio,  where  I  had  spent  the  previous  evening. 
After  examining  the  pictures  on  the  walls  and  the  easels, 
I  walked  to  the  window  and  looked  out  at  the  garden. 
It  was  large,  and  so  neglected  and  untrimmed  as 
to  be  a  veritable  wilderness.  While  I  was  marvel- 
ling why  it  should  have  been  left  in  this  state, 
I  saw  the  eyes  of  some  animal  staring  at  me  from 
a  distance,  and  was  soon  astonished  to  see  that  they 
belonged  to  a  little  Indian  bull.  My  curiosity  induced 
me  to  go  into  the  garden  and  look  at  the  creature.  He 
seemed  rather  threatening  at  first,  but  after  a  while 
allowed  me  to  go  up  to  him  and  stroke  him.  Then  I  left 
the  Indian  bull  and  explored  this  extraordinary  domain. 
It  was  full  of  unkempt  trees,  including  two  fine  mul- 
berries, and  surrounded  by  a  very  high  wall.  Soon  I 
came  across  an  object  which,  at  first,  seemed  a  little  mass 
of  black  and  white  oats  moving  along,  but  I  presently 
discovered  it  to  be  a  hedgehog.  It  was  so  tame  that  it 
did  not  curl  up  as  I  approached  it,  but  allowed  me, 
though  with  some  show  of  nervousness,  to  stroke  its 
pretty  little  black  snout.  As  I  walked  about  the  garden, 
I  found  it  was  populated  with  several  kinds  of  animals 
such  as  are  never  seen  except  in  menageries  or  in  the 
Zoological  Gardens.  Wombats,  kangaroos,  and  the  like, 
formed  a  kind  of  happy  family. 

My  love  of  animals  led  me  to  linger  in  the  garden. 
When  I  returned  to  the  house  I  found  that  D'Arcy  had 
already  breakfasted,  and  was  at  work  in  the  studio. 

After  greeting  me  with  the  greatest  cordiality,  he 
said  : 

*  No   doubt   you   are   surprised    at    my    menagerie. 


1 68  Dante  Gabriel   Rossetti 

Every  man  has  one  side  of  his  character  where  the  child 
remains.  I  have  a  love  of  animals  which,  I  suppose,  I 
may  call  a  passion.  The  kind  of  amusement  they  can 
afford  me  is  like  none  other.  It  is  the  self-consciousness 
of  men  and  women  that  makes  them,  in  a  general  way, 
intensely  unamusing.  I  turn  from  them  to  the  uncon- 
scious brutes,  and  often  get  a  world  of  enjoyment.  To 
watch  a  kitten  or  a  puppy  play,  or  the  funny  antics  of  a 
parrot  or  a  cockatoo,  or  the  wise  movements  of  a  wombat, 
will  keep  me  for  hours  from  being  bored.' 
.    *  And  children,'  I  said — *  do  you  like  children  ?  ' 

'  Yes,  so  long  as  they  remain  like  the  young  animals 
— until  they  become  self-conscious,  I  mean,  and  that  is 
very  soon.  Then  their  charm  goes.  Has  it  ever  occurred 
to  you  how  fascinating  a  beautiful  young  girl  would  be 
if  she  were  as  unconscious  as  a  young  animal  ?  What 
makes  you  sigh  ?  ' 

My  thoughts  had  flown  to  Winifred  breakfasting 
with  her  *  Prince  of  the  Mist '  on  Snowdon.  And  I  said 
to  myself,  '  How  he  would  have  been  fascinated  by  a 
sight  like  that ! ' 

My  experience  of  men  at  that  time  was  so  slight  that 
the  opinion  I  then  formed  of  D'Arcy  as  a  talker  was  not 
of  much  account.  But  since  then  I  have  seen  very  much 
of  men,  and  I  find  that  I  was  right  in  the  view  I  then  took 
of  his  conversational  powers.  When  his  spirits  were  at 
their  highest  he  was  without  an  equal  as  a  wit,  without 
an  equal  as  a  humourist.  He  had  more  than  even  Cyril 
Aylwin's  quickness  of  repartee,  and  it  wafs  of  an  incom- 
parably rarer  quality.  To  define  it  would  be,  of  course, 
impossible,  but  I  might  perhaps  call  it  poetic  fancy 
suddenly  stimulated  at  moments  by  animal  spirits  into 
rapid  movements — so  rapid,  indeed,  that  what  in  slower 
movement  would  be  merely  fancy,  in  him  became  wit. 


Rossetti's   Wit  and   Humour  169 

Beneath  the  coruscations  of  this  wit  a  rare  and  deep  in- 
tellect was  always  perceptible. 

His  humour  was  also  so  fanciful  that  it  seemed  poetry 
at  play,  but  here  was  the  remarkable  thing  :  although  he 
was  not  unconscious  of  his  other  gifts,  he  did  not  seem 
to  be  in  the  least  aware  that  he  was  a  humourist  of  the 
first  order  ;  every  '  jeu  d'esprit '  seemed  to  leap  from 
him  involuntarily,  like  the  spray  from  a  fountain.  A 
dull  man  like  myself  must  not  attempt  to  reproduce 
these  qualities  here. 

While  he  was  talking  he  kept  on  painting." 


Chapter  XII 

WILLIAM    MORRIS 

IT  is  natural  after  writing  about  Rossetti  to  think  of 
William  Morris.  In  my  opinion  the  masterpiece 
among  all  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  '  Athenaeum  '  monographs 
is  the  one  upon  him.  Between  these  two  there  was  an 
intimacy  of  the  closest  kind — from  1873  to  the  day  of 
the  poet's  death.  This,  no  doubt,  apart  from  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  graphic  power,  accounts  for  the  extraordinary 
vividness  of  the  portrait  of  his  friend.  I  have  heard 
more  than  one  eminent  friend  of  William  Morris  say 
that  from  a  few  paragraphs  of  this  monograph  a  reader 
gains  a  far  more  vivid  picture  of  this  fascinating  man 
than  is  to  be  gained  from  reading  and  re-reading  any- 
thing else  that  has  been  published  about  him.  It  is  a 
grievous  loss  to  literature  that  the  man  so  fully  equipped 
for  writing  a  biography  of  Morris  is  scarcely  likely  to 
write  one.  Morris,  when  he  was  busy  in  Queen's  Square, 
used  to  be  one  of  the  most  frequent  visitors  at  the  gather- 
ings at  Danes  Inn  with  Mr.  Swinburne,  Dr.  Westland 
Marston,  Madox  Brown,  and  others,  on  Wednesday 
evenings ;  and  he  and  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  were  fre- 
quently together  at  Kelmscott  during  the  time  of  the 
joint  occupancy  of  the  old  Manor  house,  and  also  after 
Rossetti's  death. 

When  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  wrote  '  Aylwin  '  he  did 
not  contemplate  that  the  Hurstcote  of  the  story  would 
immediately  be  identified  with  Kelmscott  Manor.     The 


Kelmscott   Manor  171 

pictures  of  localities  and  the  descriptions  of  the  characters 
were  so  vivid  that  Hurstcote  was  at  once  identified  with 
Kelmscott,  and  D'Arcy  was  at  once  identified  with  Ros- 
etti.  Morris's  passion  for  angling  is  slightly  intro- 
duced in  the  later  chapters  of  the  book,  and  this  is  not 
surprising,  for  some  of  the  happiest  moments  of  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton's  life  were  spent  at  Kelmscott.  Treffry 
Dunn's  portrait  of  him,  sitting  on  a  fallen  tree  beside 
the  back-water,  was  painted  at  Kelmscott,  and  the 
scenery  and  the  house  are  admirably  rendered  in  the 
picture. 

Mr.  Hake,  in  *  Notes  and  Queries '  (June  7,  1902) 
mentions  some  interesting  facts  with  regard  to  '  Hurst- 
cote Manor  '  and  Morris  : — 

"  Morris,  whom  I  had  the  privilege  of  knowing  very 
well,  and  with  whom  I  have  stayed  at  Kelmscott  during 
the  Rossetti  period,  is  alluded  to  in  '  Aylwin  '  (chap,  Ix. 
book  XV.)  as  the  '  enthusiastic  angler  '  who  used  to  go 
down  to  '  Hurstcote  '  to  fish.  At  that  time  this  fine  old 
seventeenth  century  manor  house  was  in  the  joint  occu- 
pancy of  Rossetti  and  Morris.  Afterwards  it  was  in  the 
joint  occupancy  of  Morris  and  (a  beloved  friend  of  the 
two)  the  late  F.  S.  Ellis,  who,  with  Mr.  Cockerell,  was 
executor  under  Morris's  will.  The  series  of  '  large  attics 
in  which  was  a  number  of  enormous  oak  beams '  sup- 
porting the  antique  roof,  was  a  favourite  resort  of  my 
own  ;  but  all  the  ghostly  noise  that  I  there  heard  was 
the  snoring  of  young  owls — a  peculiar  sound  that  had  a 
special  fascination  for  Rossetti ;  and  after  dinner  Ros- 
setti, my  brother,  and  I,  or  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  and  I, 
would  go  to  the  attics  to  listen  to  them. 

With  regard  to  ^  Hurstcote  '  I  well  knew  '  the  large 
bedroom,  with  low-panelled  walls  and  the  vast   antique 


1/2  William  Morris 

bedstead  made  of  black  carved  oak  '  upon  which  Winifred 
Wynne  slept.  In  fact,  the  only  thing  in  the  description 
of  this  room  that  I  do  not  remember  is  the  beautiful 
*  Madonna  and  Child,'  upon  the  frame  of  which  was 
written  *  Chiaro  dell'  Erma '  (readers  of  '  Hand  and 
Soul '  will  remember  that  name).  I  wonder  whether  it 
is  a  Madonna  by  Parmigiano,  belonging  to  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton,  which  was  much  admired  by  Leighton  and 
others,  and  which  has  been  exhibited.  This  quaint  and 
picturesque  bedroom  leads  by  two  or  three  steps  to  the 
tapestried  room  '  covered  with  old  faded  tapestry — so 
faded,  indeed,  that  its  general  effect  was  that  of  a  dull 
grey  texture  ' — depicting  the  story  of  Samson.  Ros- 
setti  used  the  tapestry  room  as  a  studio,  and  I  have  seen 
in  it  the  very  same  pictures  that  so  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  Winifred  Wynne  :  the  *  grand  brunette  '  (painted 
from  Mrs.  Morris)  '  holding  a  pomegranate  in  her  hand  '; 
the  '  other  brunette,  whose  beautiful  eyes  are  glistening 
and  laughing  over  the  fruit  she  is  holding  up  '  (painted 
from  the  same  famous  Irish  beauty,  named  Smith,  who 
appears  in  *  The  Beloved  '),  and  the  blonde  '  under  the 
apple  blossoms '  (painted  from  a  still  more  beautiful 
woman — Mrs.  Stillman).  These  pictures  were  not  per- 
manently placed  there,  but,  as  it  chanced,  they  were  there 
(for  retouching)  on  a  certain  occasion  when  I  was  visiting 
at  Kelmscott." 

Among  the  remarkable  men  that  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
used  to  meet  at  Kelmscott,  was  Morris's  friend.  Dr. 
John  Henry  Middleton,  Slade  Professor  of  Fine  Art 
in  the  University  of  Cambridge  and  Art  Director  of  the 
South  Kensington  Museum — a  man  of  extraordinary 
gifts,  who  promised  to  be  one  of  the  foremost  of  the 
scholarly  writers  of  our  time,  but  who  died  prematurely. 


Morris,   Middleton   and   Watts-Dunton      173 

Some  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  anecdotes  of  the  causeries 
at  Kelmscott  between  Morris,  Middleton,  and  himself, 
are  so  interesting  that  it  is  a  pity  they  have  never  been 
recorded  in  print.  Middleton  was  one  of  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  collaborators  in  the  ninth  edition  of  the  *  En- 
cyclopaedia Britannica,'  to  which  he  contributed  the 
article  on  '  Rome,'  one  of  the  finest  essays  in  that  work. 

Morris  was  notoriously  indifferent  to  critical  expressions 
about  his  work  ;  and  he  used  to  declare  that  the  only 
reviews  of  his  works  which  he  ever  took  the  trouble  to 
read  were  the  reviews  by  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  in  the 
*  Athenaeum.'  And  the  poet  might  well  say  this,  for 
those  who  have  studied,  as  I  have,  those  elaborate  and 
brilliant  essays  upon  '  Sigurd,'  '  The  House  of  the 
Wolfings,'  '  The  Roots  of  the  Mountains,'  '  The  GUt- 
tering  Plain,'  *  The  Well  at  the  World's  End,' 
'  The  Tale  of  Beowulf,'  '  News  from  Nowhere,' 
'  Poems  by  the  Way,'  will  be  inclined  to  put  them  at  the 
top  of  all  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  purely  critical  work.  The 
'  Quarterly  Review,'  in  the  article  upon  Morris,  makes 
allusion  to  the  relations  between  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  and 
Morris ;  so  does  the  writer  of  the  admirable  article  upon 
Morris  in  the  new  edition  of  Chambers's  '  Cyclopaedia 
of  English  Literature.'  I  record  these  facts,  not  in  order 
to  depreciate  the  work  of  other  men,  but  as  a  justifica- 
tion for  the  extracts  I  am  going  to  make  from  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  monograph  in  the  '  Athenaeum.' 

The  article  contains  these  beautiful  meditations  on 
Pain  and  Death  : — 

"  Each  time  that  I  saw  him  he  declared,  in  answer  to 
my  inquiries,  that  he  suffered  no  pain  whatever.  And  a 
comforting  thought  this  is  to  us  all — that  Morris  suffered 
no  pain.     To  Death  himself  we  may  easily  be  reconciled 


174  William   Morris 

— nay,  we  might  even  look  upon  him  as  Nature's  final 
beneficence  to  all  her  children,  if  it  were  not  for  the  cruel 
means  he  so  often  employs  in  fulfilling  his  inevitable 
mission.  The  thought  that  Morris's  life  had  ended  in 
the  tragedy  of  pain — the  thought  that  he  to  whom  work 
was  sport,  and  generosity  the  highest  form  of  enjoyment, 
suffered  what  some  men  suffer  in  shuffling  off  the  mortal 
coil — ^would  have  been  intolerable  almost.  For  among 
the  thousand  and  one  charms  of  the  man,  this,  perhaps, 
was  the  chief,  that  Nature  had  endowed  him  with  an 
enormous  capacity  of  enjoyment,  and  that  Circumstance, 
conspiring  with  Nature,  said  to  him,  '  Enjoy.'  Born  in 
easy  circumstances,  though  not  to  the  degrading  trouble 
of  wealth — cherishing  as  his  sweetest  possessions  a  devoted 
wife  and  two  daughters,  each  of  them  endowed  with 
intelligence  so  rare  as  to  understand  a  genius  such  as  his — 
surrounded  by  friends,  some  of  whom  were  among  the 
first  men  of  our  time,  and  most  of  whom  were  of  the 
very  salt  of  the  earth — it  may  be  said  of  him  that  Mis- 
fortune, if  she  touched  him  at  all,  never  struck  home. 
If  it  is  true,  as  Merimee  affirms,  that  men  are  hastened 
to  maturity  by  misfortune,  who  wanted  Morris  to  be 
mature  ?  Who  want  ed  him  to  be  other  than  the  radiant 
boy  of  genius  that  he  remained  till  the  years  had  silvered 
his  hair  and  carved  wrinkles  on  his  brow,  but  left  his  blue- 
grey  eyes  as  bright  as  when  they  first  opened  on  the 
world  ?  Enough  for  us  to  think  that  the  man  must, 
indeed,  be  specially  beloved  by  the  gods  who  in  his 
sixty-third  year  dies  young.  Old  age  Morris  could  not 
have  borne  with  patience.  Pain  would  not  have  devel- 
oped him  into  a  hero.  This  beloved  man,  who  must 
have  died  some  day,  died  when  his  marvellous  powers 
were  at  their  best — and  died  without  pain.  The  scheme 
of  life  and  death  does  not  seem  so  much  awry,  after  all. 


'I   have   enjoyed   my   life'  175 

At  the  last  interview  but  one  that  ever  I  had  with 
him — it  was  in  the  Httle  carpetless  room  from  which  so 
much  of  his  best  work  was  turned  out — he  himself  sur- 
prised me  by  leading  the  conversation  upon  a  subject  he 
rarely  chose  to  talk  about — the  mystery  of  life  and  death. 
The  conversation  ended  with  these  words  of  his  :  '  I  have 
enjoyed  my  life — few  men  more  so — and  death  in  any 


It  is  in  this  same  vivid  word-picture  that  occur  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton's  reflections  upon  the  wear  and  tear  of 
genius  : — 

"  It  is  difficult  not  to  think  that  the'cause  of  causes  of 
his  death  was  excessive  exercise  of  all  his  forces,  especially 
of  the  imaginative  faculty.  When  I  talked  to  him,  as 
I  often  did,  of  the  peril  of  such  a  life  of  tension  as  his,  he 
pooh-poohed  the  idea.  *  Look  at  Gladstone,'  he  would 
say,  '  look  at  those  wise  owls  your  chancellors  and  your 
judges.  Don't  they  live  all  the  longer  for  work  ?  It  is 
rust  that  kills  men,  not  work.'  No  doubt  he  was  right 
in  contending  that  in  intellectual  efforts  such  as  those 
he  alluded  to,  where  the  only  faculty  drawn  upon  is  the 
*  dry  light  of  intelligence,'  a  prodigious  amount  of  work 
may  be  achieved  without  any  sapping  of  the  sources  of 
life.  But  is  this  so  where  that  fusion  of  all  the  faculties 
which  we  call  genius  is  greatly  taxed  ?  I  doubt  it.  In 
all  true  imaginative  production  there  is,  as  De  Quincey 
pointed  out  many  years  ago,  a  movement,  not  of  '  the 
thinking  machine  '  only,  but  of  the  whole  roan — the 
whole  '  genial '  nature  of  the  worker — ^his  imagination, 
his  judgment,  moving  in  an  evolution  of  lightning  vel- 
ocity from  the  whole  of  the  work  to  the  part,  from  the 
part  to  the  whole,  together  with  every  emotion  of  the 
soul.     Hence   when,  as  in  the  case  of  Walter  Scott,  of 


176  William  Morris 

Charles  Dickens,  and  presumably  of  Shakespeare  too,  the 
emotional  nature  of  Man  is  overtaxed,  every  part  of  the 
frame  suffers,  and  cries  out  in  vain  for  its  share  of  that 
nervous  fluid  which  is  the  true  vis  vitae. 

We  have  only  to  consider  the  sort  of  work  Morris 
produced,  and  its  amount,  to  realize  that  no  human  powers 
could  continue  to  withstand  such  a  strain.  Many  are  of 
opinion  that '  The  Lovers  of  Gudrun  '  is  his  finest  poem  ; 
he  worked  at  it  from  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  till  four 
in  the  afternoon,  and  when  he  rose  from  the  table  he  had 
produced  750  lines  !  Think  of  the  forces  at  work  in 
producing  a  poem  like  '  Sigurd.'  Think  of  the  mingling 
of  the  drudgery  of  the  Dryasdust  with  the  movements  of 
an  imaginative  vision  unsurpassed  in  our  time  ;  think,  I 
say,  of  the  collating  of  the  '  Volsunga  Saga  '  with  the 
'  Nibelungenlied,'  the  choosing  of  this  point  from  the 
Saga-man,  and  of  that  point  from  the  later  poem  of  the 
Germans,  and  then  fusing  the  whole  by  imaginative 
heat  into  the  greatest  epic  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Was  there  not  work  enough  here  for  a  considerable  por- 
tion of  a  poet's  life  ?  And  yet  so  great  is  the  entire  mass 
of  his  work  that  '  Sigurd  '  is  positively  overlooked  in 
many  of  the  notices  of  his  writings  which  have  appeared 
in  the  last  few  days  in  the  press,  while  in  the  others  it  is 
alluded  to  in  three  words ;  and  this  simply  because  the 
mass  of  other  matter  to  be  dealt  with  fills  up  all  the  avail- 
able space  of  a  newspaper." 

Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  critical  acumen  is  nowhere  more 
strikingly  seen  than  in  his  remarks  upon  Morris's  trans- 
lation of  the  Odyssey  : — 

"  Some  competent  critics  are  dissatisfied  with  Morris's 
translation  ;  yet  in  a  certain  sense  it  is  a  triumph.  The 
two  specially  Homeric   qualities — those,   indeed,  which 


Homeric   Eagerness   and   Dignity         177 

set  Homer  apart  from  all  other  poets — are  eagerness  and 
dignity.  Never  again  can  they  be  fully  combined,  for 
never  again  will  poetry  be  written  in  the  Greek  hexa- 
meters and  by  a  Homer.  That  Tennyson  could  have 
given  us  the  Homeric  dignity  his  magnificent  rendering 
of  a  famous  fragment  of  the  Iliad  shows.  Chapman's 
translations  show  that  the  eagerness  also  can  be  caught. 
Morris,  of  course,  could  not  have  given  the  dignity  of 
Homer,  but  then,  while  Tennyson  has  left  us  only  a  few 
lines  speaking  with  the  dignity  of  the  IHad,  Morris  gave 
us  a  translation  of  the  entire  Odyssey,  which,  though  it 
missed  the  Homeric  dignity,  secured  the  eagerness  as 
completely  as  Chapman's  free-and-easy  paraphrase,  and 
in  a  rendering  as  literal  as  Buckley's  prose  crib,  which 
lay  frankly  by  Morris's  side  as  he  wrote.  .  .  .  Morris's 
translation  of  the  Odyssey  and  his  translation  of  Virgil, 
where  he  gives  us  an  almost  word-for-word  translation 
and  yet  throws  over  the  poem  a  glamour  of  romance 
which  brings  Virgil  into  the  sympathy  of  the  modern 
reader,  would  have  occupied  years  with  almost  any  other 
poet.  But  these  two  efforts  of  his  genius  are  swamped 
by  the  purely  original  poems,  such  as  '  The  Defence  of 
Guenevere,'  '  Jason,'  '  The  Earthly  Paradise,'  *  Love  is 
Enough,'  '  Poems  by  the  Way,'  etc.  And  then  come  his 
translations  from  the  Icelandic.  Mere  translation  is,  of 
course,  easy  enough,  but  not  such  translation  as  that  in 
the  '  Saga  Library.'  Allowing  for  all  the  aid  he  got  from 
Mr.  Magnusson,  what  a  work  this  is  !  Think  of  the 
imaginative  exercise  required  to  turn  the  language  of 
these  Saga-men  into  a  diction  so  picturesque  and  so 
concrete  as  to  make  each  Saga  an  English  poem — for  poem 
each  one  is,  if  Aristotle  is  right  in  thinking  that  imagin- 
ative substance  and  not  metre  is  the  first  requisite  of  a 
poem." 

W.-D.  12 


178  William   Morris 

In  connection  with  William  Morris,  readers  of  *  The 
Coming  of  Love '  will  recall  the  touching  words  in 
the  '  Prefatory  Note ' ; — 

"  Had  it  not  been  for  the  intervention  of  matters  of  a 
peculiarly  absorbing  kind — matters  which  caused  me  to 
delay  the  task  of  collecting  these  verses — I  should  have 
been  the  most  favoured  man  who  ever  brought  out  a 
volume  of  poems,  for  they  would  have  been  printed  by 
William  Morris,  at  the  Kelmscott  Press.  As  that  pro- 
jected edition  of  his  was  largely  subscribed  for,  a  word 
of  explanation  to  the  subscribers  is,  I  am  told,  required 
from  me.  Among  the  friends  who  saw  much  of  that 
great  poet  and  beloved  man  during  the  last  year  of  his 
life,  there  was  one  who  would  not  and  could  not  believe 
that  he  would  die — myself.  To  me  he  seemed  human 
vitality  concentrated  to  a  point  of  quenchless  light ;  and 
when  the  appalling  truth  that  he  must  die  did  at  last 
strike  through  me,  I  had  no  heart  and  no  patience  to 
think  about  anything  in  connection  with  him  but  the 
loss  that  was  to  come  upon  us.  And,  now,  whatsoever 
pleasure  I  may  feel  at  seeing  my  verses  in  one  of  Mr. 
Lane's  inviting  little  volumes  will  be  dimmed  and  marred 
by  the  thought  that  Morris's  name  also  might  have  been, 
and  is  not,  on  the  imprint." 

As  a  matter  of  fact  this  incident  in  the  publication 
of  *  The  Coming  of  Love  '  is  an  instance  of  that  artistic 
conscientiousness  which  up  to  a  certain  point  is  of  in- 
estimable value  to  the  poet,  but  after  that  point  is  reached, 
baffles  him.  The  poem  had  been  read  in  fragments  and 
deeply  admired  by  that  galaxy  of  poets  among  whom 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  moved.  Certain  fragments  of  it  had 
appeared  in  the  '  Athenaeum  '  and   other   journals,  but 


Morris   and   'The  Coming   of  Love*       179 

the  publication  of  the  entire  poem  had  been  delayed 
owing  to  the  fact  that  certain  portions  of  it  had  been  lent 
and  lost.  Morris  not  only  offered  to  bring  out  at  the 
Kelmscott  Press  an  edition  de  luxe  of  the  book,  but  he 
actually  took  the  trouble  to  get  a  full  list  of  subscribers, 
and  insisted  upon  allowing  the  author  a  magnificent 
royalty.  Nothing,  however,  would  persuade  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  to  bring  out  the  book  until  these  lost  portions 
could  be  found,  and  notwithstanding  the  generous  urg- 
ings  of  Morris,  the  matter  stood  still ;  and  then,  when 
the  book  was  ready,  Morris  was  seized  by  that  ill- 
ness which  robbed  us  of  one  of  the  greatest  writers  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  And  even  after  Morris's  death 
the  poet's  executors  and  friends,  the  late  Mr.  F.  S.  Ellis 
and  the  well-known  bibliographer,  Mr.  Sydney  C.  Cock- 
erell,  were  willing  and  even  desirous  that  the  Kelmscott 
edition  of  the  poems  should  be  brought  out.  Subse- 
quently, when  a  large  portion  of  the  lost  poems  was 
found,  the  volume  was  published  by  Mr.  John  Lane. 
This  anecdote  alone  explains  why  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  is 
never  tired  of  dwelling  upon  the  nobility  of  Morris's 
nature,  and  upon  his  generosity  in  small  things  as  well 
as  in  large. 

Another  favourite  story  of  his  in  connection  with  this 
subject  is  the  following.  When  Morris  published  his 
first  volume  in  the  Kelmscott  Press,  he  sent  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  a  presentation  copy  of  the  book.  He  also  sent 
him  a  presentation  copy  of  the  second  and  third.  But 
knowing  how  small  was  the  profit  at  this  time  from 
the  books  issued  by  the  Kelmscott  Press,  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  felt  a  little  delicacy  in  taking  these  presen- 
tation copies,  and  told  Mrs.  Morris  that  she  should 
gently  protest  against  such  extravagance.  Mrs.  Morris 
assured  him  that  it  would  be  perfectly  useless  to  do  so. 


i8o  William   Morris 

But  when  the  edition  of  Keats  was  coming  out,  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  determined  to  grapple  with  the  matter, 
and  one  Sunday  afternoon  when  he  was  at  Kelmscott 
House,  he  said  to  Morris: 

*  Morris,  I  wish  you  to  put  my  name  down  as  a 
subscriber  to  the  Keats,  and  I  give  my  commission  for 
it  in  the  presence  of  witnesses.  I  am  a  paying  sub- 
scriber  to   the   Keats.' 

'  All  right,  old  chap,  you're  a  subscriber.' 

In  spite  of  this  there  came  the  usual  presentation  copy  of 
the  Keats ;  and  when  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  was  at  Kelm- 
scott House  on  the  following  Sunday  afternoon,  he  told 
Morris  that  a  mistake  had  been  made.     Morris  laughed. 

*  All  right,  there's  no  mistake — that  is  my  presenta- 
tion copy  of  Keats.' 

But  when  at  last  the  magnum  opus  of  the  Kelmscott 
Press  was  being  discussed — the  marvellous  Chaucer  with 
Burne-Jones's  illustrations — Mr.  Watts-Dunton  knew 
that  here  a  great  deal  of  money  was  to  be  risked,  and 
probably  sunk,  and  he  said  to  Morris : 

'  Now,  Morris,  I'm  going  to  talk  to  you  seriously  about 
the  Chaucer.  I  know  that  it's  going  to  be  a  dead  loss  to 
you,  and  I  do  really  and  seriously  hope  that  you  do  not 
contemplate  anything  so  wild  as  to  send  me  a  presen- 
tation copy  of  that  book.  You  know  my  affection  for 
you,  and  you  know  I  speak  the  truth,  when  I  tell  you 
that  it  would  give  me  pain  to  accept  it.' 

*  Well,  old  chap,  very  likely  this  time  I  shall  have 
to  stay  my  hand,  for,  between  ourselves,  I  expect  I  shall 
drop  some  money  over  it ;  but  the  Chaucer  will  be  at  The 
Pines,  because  Ned  Jones  and  I  are  going  to  join  in  the 
presentation  of  a  copy  to  Algernon  Swinburne.' 

After  this  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  mind  was  set  at 
rest,  as   he   told  Mrs.  Morris.      But   when   Mr.    Swin- 


Morris's   Generosity  i8i 

burne's  copy  reached  '  The  Pines '  it  was  accompanied  by 
another  one — ^  Theodore  Watts-Dunton  from  William 
Morris.' 

Another  anecdote,  illustrative  of  his  generosity,  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  also  tells.  Mr.  Swinburne,  wishing  to 
possess  a  copy  of  '  The  Golden  Legend,'  bought  the 
Kelmscott  edition,  and  one  day  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  told 
Morris  this.  Morris  gave  a  start  as  though  a  sudden 
pain  had  struck  him. 

'  What !  Algernon  pay  ten  pounds  for  a  book  of  mine  ! 
Why  I  thought  he  did  not  care  for  black  letter  repro- 
ductions, or  I  would  have  sent  him  a  copy  of  every 
book  I  brought  out.' 

And  when  he  did  bring  out  another  book,  two  copies 
were  sent  to  '  The  Pines,'  one  for  Mr.,'Watts-Dunton  and 
one  for  Mr.  Swinburne. 

Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  speaking  about  '  The  Water  of 
the  Wondrous  Isles,'  tells  this  amusing  story  : — 

"  Once,  many  years  ago,  Morris  was  inveigled  into  see- 
ing and  hearing  the  great  poet-singer  Stead,  whose 
rhythms  have  had  such  a  great  effect  upon  the  '  art 
poetic,'  the  author  of  '  The  Perfect  Cure,'  and  '  It's 
Daddy  this  and  Daddy  that,'  and  other  brilliant  lyrics. 
A  friend  with  whom  Morris  had  been  spending  the  even- 
ing, and  who  had  been  talking  about  poetic  energy  and 
poetic  art  in  relation  to  the  chilly  reception  accorded 
to  '  Sigurd,'  persuaded  him — much  against  his  will — to 
turn  in  for  a  few  seconds  to  see  Mr.  Stead,  whose  per- 
formance consisted  of  singing  a  song,  the  burden  of  which 
was  '  I'm  a  perfect  cure  ! '  while  he  leaped  up  into  the  air 
without  bending  his  legs  and  twirled  round  like  a  dervish. 
*  What  made  you  bring  me  to  see  this  damned  tom- 
foolery ?  '  Morris  grumbled ;  and  on  being  told  that  it 


1 82  William   Morris 

was  to  give  him  an  example  of  poetic  energy  at  its 
tensest,  without  poetic  art,  he  grumbled  still  more  and 
shouldered  his  way  out.  If  Morris  were  now  alive — 
and  all  England  will  sigh,  *  Ah,  would  he  were  ! ' — he 
would  confess,  with  his  customary  emphasis,  that  the  poet 
had  nothing  of  the  slightest  importance  to  learn,  even 
from  the  rhythms  of  Mr.  Stead,  marked  as  they  were  by 
terpsichorean  pauses  that  were  beyond  the  powers  of 
the  '  Great  Vance.'  " 


Chapter  XIII 

THE  'EXAMINER' 

LONG  before  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  printed  a  line,  he 
was  a  prominent  figure  in  the  literary  and  artistic 
sets  in  London  ;  but,  as  Mr.  Hake  has  said,  it  was  merely 
as  ^  conversationalist  that  he  was  known.  His  conversa- 
tion was  described  by  Rossetti  as  being  like  that  of  no 
other  person  moving  in  literary  circles,  because  he  was 
always  enunciating  new  views  in  phrasings  so  polished 
that,  to  use  Rossetti's  words,  his  improvized  locutions 
were  as  perfect  as '  fitted  jewels.'  Those  who  have  been 
privileged  to  listen  to  his  table-talk  will  attest  the  felicity 
of  the  image.  Seldom  has  so  great  a  critic  had  so  fine  an 
audience.  Rossetti  often  lamented  that  Theodore  Watts' 
spoken  criticism  had  never  been  taken  down  in  short- 
hand. For  a  long  time  various  editors  who  had  met 
him  at  Rossetti's,  at  Madox  Brown's,  at  Westland 
Marston's,  at  Whistler's  breakfasts,'  and  at  the  late  Lord 
Houghton's,  endeavoured  to  persuade  him  to  make 
practical  use  in  criticism  of  the  ideas  that  flowed  in  a 
continuous  stream  from  his  lips.  But,  as  Rossetti  used 
to  afHrm,  he  was  the  one  man  of  his  time  who,  with 
immense  literary  equipment,  was  without  literary 
ambition.  This  peculiarity  of  his  was  eloquently  de- 
scribed by  the    late  Dr.   Gordon  Hake  in  his   '  New 

Day '  :— 

^  _  .ch 

You  say  you  care  not  for  the  people's  praise,  ^g  ^   •_ 

That  poetry  is  its  own  recompense ; 
A7  r      1.  I-   .1,    J    *   u  ^^  ^y^s  were 

You  care  not  for  the  wreath,  the  dusty  bays,  ^ 

Given  to  the  whirling  wind  and  hurried  h'^^^^  tnem. 

183 


1 84  The  '  Examiner  * 

The  first  editor  who  secured  Theodore  Watts,  after 
repeated  efforts  to  do  so,  was  the  late  Professor  Minto, 
and  this  only  came  about  because  during  his  editorship 
of  the  *  Examiner  '  both  he  and  Watts  resided  in  Danes 
Inn,  and  were  constantly  seeing  each  other. 

It  was  Minto  who  afterwards  declared  that  "  the  arti- 
cles in  the  '  Examiner  '  and  the  '  Athenaeum  '  are  gold- 
mines, in  which  we  others  are  apt  to  dig  unconsciously 
without  remembering  that  the  nuggets  are  Theodore 
Watts's,  who  is  too  lazy  to  peg  out  his  claim ."  The  first 
article  by  him  that  appeared  in  Minto's  paper  attracted 
great  attention  and  roused  great  curiosity.  This  indeed 
is  not  surprising,  for,  as  I  found  when  I  read  it,  it  was 
as  remarkable  for  pregnancy  of  thought  and  of  style  as 
the  latest  and  ripest  of  his  essays.  A  friend  of  his,  be- 
longing to  the  set  in  which  he  moved,  who  remembers 
the  appearance  of  this  article,  has  been  kind  enough  to 
tell  me  the  following  anecdote  in  connection  with  it. 
The  contributors  to  the  paper  at  that  time  consisted 
of  Minto,  Dr  Garnett,  Swinburne,  Edmund  Gosse, 
'  Scholar '  WiUiams,  Comyns  Carr,  Walter  Pollock, 
Duffield  (the  translator  of  '  Don  Quixote '),  Professor 
Sully,  Dr.  Marston,  WilHam  Bell  Scott,  WilHam  Black, 
and  many  other  able  writers.  On  the  evening  of  the 
day  when  Theodore  Watts's  first  article  appeared,  there 
was  a  party  at  the  house  of  WilHam  Bell  Scott  in  Chel- 
sea, and  every  one  was  asking  who  this  new  contributor 
was.  It  was  one  of  the  conditions  under  which  the 
article  was  written  that  its  authorship  was  to  be  kept  a 
secret.  Bell  Scott,  who  took  a  great  interest  in  the 
'  Examiner,'  was  especially  inquisitive  about  the  new 
writei  After  having  in  vain  tried  to  get  from  Minto 
the  name  of  the  writer,  he  went  up  to  Watts,  and  said  : 
"  I  would  giv  -  almost  anything  to  know  who  the  writer 


The  Symposium  in   the  Strand  185 

is  who  appears  in  the  '  Examiner '  for  the  first  time  to- 
day." "What  makes  you  inquire  about  it  ?"  said  Watts. 
"  What  is  the  interest  attaching  to  the  writer  of  such 
fantastic  stuff  as  that  ?  Surely  it  is  the  most  mannered 
writing  that  has  appeared  in  the  *  Examiner '  for  a  long 
time  !  "  Then,  turning  to  Minto,  he  said :  "  I  can't 
think,  Minto,  what  made  you  print  it  at  all."  Scott, 
who  had  a  most  exalted  opinion  of  Watts  as  a  critic,  was 
considerably  abashed  at  this,  and  began"  to  endeavour  to 
withdraw  some  of  his  enthusiastic  remarks.  This  set 
Minto  laughing  aloud,  and  thus  the  secret  got  out. 

From  that  hour  Watts  became  the  most  noticeable 
writer  among  a  group  of  critics  who  were  aU  noticeable. 
Week  after  week  there  appeared  in  this  historic  paper 
criticism  as  fine  as  had  ever  appeared  in  it  in  the  time  of 
Leigh  Hunt,  and  as  brilliant  as  had  appeared  in  it  in  the 
time  of  Fonblanque.  At  this  time  Minto  used  to  enter- 
tain his  contributors  on  Monday  evening  in  the  room 
over  the  publisher's  office  in  the  Strand,  and  I  have 
been  told  by  one  who  was  frequently  there  that  these 
smoking  symposia  were  among  the  most  brilliant  in  Lon- 
don. One  can  well  imagine  this  when  one  remembers 
the  names  of  those  who  used  to  attend  the  meetings. 

It  was  through  the  '  Examiner  '  that  Watts  formed 
that  friendship  with  William  Black  which  his  biographer. 
Sir  Wemyss  Reid,  alludes  to.  Between  these  two  there 
was  one  subject  on  which  they  were  especially  in  sympathy 
— their  knowledge  and  love  of  nature.  At  that  time 
Black  was  immensely  popular.  In  personal  appearance 
there  was,  I  am  told,  a  superficial  resemblance  between 
the  two,  and  they  were  constantly  being  mistaken  for  each 
other  ;  and  yet,  when  they  were  side  by  side,  it  was  evi- 
dent that  the  large,  dark  moustache  and  the  black  eyes  were 
almost  the  only  points  of  resemblance  between  them. 


1 86  The  'Examiner' 

It  was  at  the  then  famous  house  in  Gower  Street  of 
Mr.  Justin  McCarthy  that  Black  and  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
first  met.  Speaking  as  an  Irishman  of  a  younger 
but  not,  I  fear,  of  so  genial  a  generation,  I  hear  tan- 
talizing accounts  of  the  popular  gatherings  at  the 
home  of  the  most  charming  and  the  most  distinguished 
Irishman  of  letters  in  the  London  of  that  time, 
where  so  many  young  men  of  my  own  country  were 
welcomed  as  warmly  as  though  they  had  not  yet  to 
win  their  spurs.  No  one  speaks  more  enthusiastically 
of  the  McCarthy  family  than  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  who 
seems  to  have  been  on  terms  of  friendship  with  them 
almost  as  soon  as  he  settled  in  London.  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  was  always  a  lover  of  McCarthy's  novels, 
but  on  his  first  visit  to  Gower  Street  Mr.  McCarthy 
was,  as  usual,  full  of  the  subject  not  of  his  own  novels, 
but  of  another  man's.  He  urged  his  new  friend  to  read 
'  Under  the  Greenwood  Tree,'  almost  forcing  him  to 
take  the  book  away  with  him,  which  he  did  :  this  was 
the  way  in  which  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  became  for  the 
first  time  acquainted  with  a  story  which  he  always  avers 
is  the  only  book  that  has  ever  revived  the  rich  rustic 
humour  of  Shakespeare's  early  comedies.  A  perfect  house- 
hold of  loving  natures,  warm  Irish  hearts,  bright  Irish 
intellects,  cultivated  and  rare,  according  to  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  testimony,  was  that  little  family  in  Gower 
Street.  I  think  he  will  pardon  me  for  repeating  one 
quaint  little  story  about  himself  and  Black  in  connection 
with  this  first  visit  to  the  McCarthys.  On  entering  the 
room  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  was  much  struck  with  what  ap- 
peared to  be  real  musical  genius  in  a  bright-eyed  little  lady 
who  was  delighting  the  party  with  her  music.  This  was 
at  the  period  in  his  own  life  which  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
calls  his  *  music-mad  period.'     And  after  a  time  he  got 


Theodore   Watts   and   William  Black     187 

talking  with  the  lady.  He  was  a  little  surprised  that  he 
was  at  once  invited  by  the  musical  lady  to  go  to  a  gather- 
ing at  her  house.  But  he  was  as  much  pleased  as  sur- 
prised to  be  so  welcomed,  and  incontinently  accepted 
the  invitation.  It  never  entered  his  mind  that  he  had 
been  mistaken  for  another  man,  until  the  other  man 
entered  the  room  and  came  up  to  the  lady.  She,  on  her 
part,  began  to  look  in  an  embarrassed  way  from  one  to 
the  other  of  the  two  swarthy,  black-moustached  gentle- 
men. She  had  mistaken  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  for  William 
Black,  with  whom  her  acquaintance  was  but  slight. 
The  contretemps  caused  much  amusement  when  the 
husband  of  the  lady,  an  eminent  novelist,  who  knew 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  well,  introduced  him  to  his  wife. 
I  do  not  know  what  was  the  end  of  the  comedy,  but  no 
doubt  it  was  a  satisfactory  one.  It  could  not  be  other- 
wise among  such  people  as  Justin  McCarthy  would  be 
likely  to  gather  round  him. 

At  that  time,  to  quote  the  words  of  the  same  friend  of 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  Watts  used  frequently  to  meet  at 
Bell  Scott's  and  Rossetti's  Professor  Appleton,  the  editor 
of  the  '  Academy.'  The  points  upon  which  these  two 
touched  were  as  unlike  the  points  upon  which  Watts  and 
William  Black  touched  as  could  possibly  be.  They  were 
both  students  of  Hegel ;  and  when  they  met,  Appleton, 
who  had  Hegel  on  the  brain,  invariably  drew  Watts  aside 
for  a  long  private  talk.  People  used  to  leave  them  alone, 
on  account  of  the  remoteness  of  the  subject  that  at- 
tracted the  two.  Watts  had  now  made  up  his  mind  that 
he  would  devote  himself  to  literature,  and,  indeed,  his 
articles  in  the  *  Examiner '  showed  that  he  had  only  to 
do  so  to  achieve  a  great  success.  Appleton  rarely  left 
Watts  without  saying,  "  I  do  wish  you  would  write  for 
the  '  Academy.'     I  want  you  to  let  me  send  you  all 


1 88  The  'Examiner' 

the  books  on  the  transcendentalists  that  come  to  the 
*  Academy,'  and  let  me  have  articles  giving  the  pith  of 
them  at  short  intervals."  This  invitation  to  furnish  the 
'  Academy '  with  a  couple  of  columns  condensing  the 
spirit  of  many  books  about  subjects  upon  which  only  a 
handful  of  people  in  England  were  competent  to  write, 
seemed  to  Watts  a  grotesque  request,  seeing  that  he  was 
at  this  very  time  the  leading  writer  on  the  '  Examiner,' 
and  was  being  constantly  approached  by  other  editors. 
It  was  consequently  the  subject  of  many  a  joke  between 
Minto,  William  Black,  Watts,  and  the  others  present 
at  the  famous  '  Examiner  '  gatherings.  After  a  while 
Mr.  Norman  MacCoU,  who  was  then  the  editor  of  the 
'  Athenaeum,'  invited  Watts  to  take  an  important 
part  in  the  reviewing  for  the  *  Athenaeum.'  At  first 
he  told  the  editor  that  there  were  two  obstacles  to  his 
accepting  the  invitation — one  was  that  the  work  that 
he  was  invited  to  do  was  largely  done  by  his  friend 
Marston,  and  that,  although  he  would  like  to  join  him, 
he  scarcely  saw  his  way,  on  account  of  the  '  Examiner,' 
which  was  ready  to  take  all  the  work  he  could  produce. 
On  opening  the  matter  to  Dr  Marston,  that  admirably 
endowed  writer  would  not  hear  of  Watts's  considering 
him  in  the  matter.  The  *  Athenaeum '  was  then,  as 
now,  the  leading  literary  organ  in  Europe,  and  the 
editor's  offer  was,  of  course,  a  very  tempting  one,  and 
Watts  was  determined  to  tell  Minto  about  it.  And  this 
he  did. 

"  Now,  Minto,"  he  said,  "  it  rests  entirely  with  you 
whether  I  shall  write  in  the  '  Athenaeum '  or  not." 
Minto,  between  whom  and  Watts  there  was  a  deep 
affection,  made  the  following  reply  : 

"  My  dear  Theodore,  I  need  not  say  that  it  will  not 
be  a  good  day  for  the  '  Examiner  '  when  you  join  the 


Minto   and  his   Friend  189 

*  Athenaeum.'  The  *  Examiner  '  is  a  struggling  paper 
which  could  not  live  without  being  subsidized  by  Peter 
Taylor,  and  it  is  not  four  months  ago  since  Leicester 
Warren  said  to  me  that  he  and  all  the  other  readers  of 
the  '  Examiner  '  looked  eagerly  for  the  '  T.  W.'  at  the 
foot  of  a  literary  article.  The  '  Athenseum '  is  both  a 
powerful  and  a  wealthy  paper.  In  short,  it  will  injure 
the  '  Examiner  '  when  your  name  is  associated  with  the 
'  Athenaeum.'  But  to  be  the  leading  voice  of  such  a 
paper  as  that  is  just  what  you  ought  to  be,  and  I  cannot 
help  advising  you  to  entertain  MacCoU's  proposal." 

In  consequence  of  this  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  closed  with 
Mr.  MacColl's  offer,  and  his  first  article  in  the  'Athenseum' 
appeared  on  July  8,  1876. 


Chapter  XIV 

THE  *  ATHEN.EUM ' 

AS  the  first  review  which  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  contri- 
buted to  the  'Athenaeum'  has  been  so  often  dis- 
cussed, and  as  it  is  as  characteristic  as  any  other  of  his 
style,  I  have  determined  to  reprint  it  entire.  It  has  the 
additional  interest,  I  believe,  of  being  the  most  rapidly 
executed  piece  of  literary  work  which  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
ever  achieved.  Mr.  MacColl,  having  secured  the  new 
writer,  tried  to  find  a  book  for  him,  and  failed,  until 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  asked  him  whether  he  intended  to 
give  an  article  upon  Skelton's  '  Comedy  of  the  Noctes 
Ambrosianae.'  The  editor  said  that  he  had  not  thought 
of  giving  the  book  a  considerable  article,  but  that,  if 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  liked  to  take  it,  it  should  be  sent  to 
him.  As  the  article  was  wanted  on  the  following  day,  it 
was  dictated  as  fast  as  the  amanuensis — not  a  shorthand 
writer — could  take  it  down. 

It  has  no  relation  to  the  Renascence  of  Wonder,  nor  is 
it  one  of  his  great  essays,  such  as  the  one  on  the  Psalms,  or 
his  essays  on  Victor  Hugo,  but  in  style  it  is  as  character- 
istic as  any  : — 

'  Is  it  really  that  the  great  squeezing  of  books  has  at 
last  begun  ?  Here,  at  least,  is  the  '  Noctes  Ambrosi- 
anae  '  squeezed  into  one  volume. 

Long  ago  we  came  upon  an  anecdote  in  Castellan, 
the  subject  of  which,  as  far  as  we  remember,  is  this. 


*  Great  Squeezer  of  Books  *  191 

The  library  of  the  Indian  kings  was  composed  of  so  many 
volumes  that  a  thousand  camels  were  necessary  to  remove 
it.     But  once  on  a  time  a  certain  prince  who  loved 
reading  much  and  other  pleasures  more,  called  a  Brahmin 
to  him,  and  said :  *  Books  are  good,  O  Brahmin,  even  as 
women  are  good,  yet  surely,  of  both  these  goods  a  prince 
may  have  too  many  ;    and  then,  O  Brahmin,  which  of 
these  two  vexations  is  sorest  to  princely  flesh  it  were 
hard  to  say ;    but  as  to  the  books,  O  Brahmin,  squeeze 
'em !  '     The    Brahmin,    understanding    well    what    the 
order  to  '  squeeze  'em '  meant    (for  he  was  a  bookman 
himself,  and  knew  that,  as  there  goes  much  water  and 
little  flavour  to  the  making  of  a  very  big  pumpkin,  so 
there  go  much  words  and  few  thoughts  to  the  making  of 
a  very  big  book),  set  to  work,  aided  by  many  scribes — 
striking  out  all  the  idle  words  from  every  book  in  the 
library ;    and  when  the  essence  of  them  had  been  ex- 
tracted it  was  found  that  ten  camels  could   carry  that 
library    without    ruffling    a    hair.     And    therefore    the 
Brahmin  was  appointed  *  Grand  Squeezer  '  of  the  realm. 
Ages  after  this,  another  prince,  who  loved  reading  much 
and  other  pleasures  a  good  deal  more,  called  the  Grand 
Squeezer  of  his  time  and  said  :  '  Thy  duties  are  neglected, 
O  Grand  Squeezer  !     Thy  life  depends  upon  the  measure 
of  thy  squeezing.'     Thereupon  the  Grand  Squeezer,  in 
fear   and   trembling,   set   to   work   and    squeezed    and 
squeezed  till  the  whole  library  became  at  last  a  load 
that  a  foal  would  have  laughed  at,  for  it  consisted  but  of 
one  book,  a  tiny  volume,  containing  four  maxims.     Yet 
the  wisdom  in  the  last  library  was  the  wisdom  in  the 
first. 

The  appearance  of  Mr.  Skelton's  condensation  of 
the  '  Noctes  Ambrosianse '  reminds  us  of  this  story,  and 
of    a    certain   solemn   warning  we   always    find    it   our 


192  The   'Athenaeum' 

duty  to  administer  to  those  who  show  a  propensity 
towards  the  baneful  coxcombry  of  authorship — the  warn- 
ing that  the  hterature  of  our  country  is  already  in  a 
fair  way  of  dying  for  the  want  of  a  Grand  Squeezer,  and 
that  unless  such  a  functionary  be  appointed  within 
the  next  ten  years,  it  will  be  smothered  by  itself.  Yet 
our  Government  will  keep  granting  pension  after  pen- 
sion to  those  whom  the  Duke  of  Wellington  used  to 
call  '  the  writing  fellows,'  for  adding  to  the  camel's  bur- 
den, instead  of  distributing  the  same  amount  among  an 
army  of  diligent  and  well-selected  squeezers.  We  say 
an  army  of  squeezers,  for  it  is  not  merely  that  almost 
every  man,  woman,  and  child  among  us  who  can 
write,  prints,  while  nobody  reads,  and,  to  judge  from 
the  '  spelling  bees,'  nobody  even  spells,  but  that  the 
fecundity  of  man  as  a  '  writing  animal '  is  on  the  in- 
crease, and  each  one  requires  a  squeezer  to  himself. 
This  is  the  alarming  thing.  Where  are  we  to  find  so 
many  squeezers  ?  Nay,  in  many  cases  there  needs  a 
separate  sub-squeezer  for  the  writer's  every  book. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  case  of  the  Carlyle  squeezer — 
what  more  could  be  expected  from  him  in  a  lifetime 
than  that  he  should  squeeze  *  Frederick  the  Great ' — 
that  enormous,  rank  and  pungent  '  haggis '  from  which, 
properly  squeezed,  such  an  ocean  would  flow  of  '  oniony 
liquid '  that  compared  with  it  the  famous  *  haggis- 
deluge  '  of  the  '  Noctes  '  which  nearly  drowned  in  gravy 
*  Christopher,'  '  the  Shepherd,'  and  '  Tickler  '  in  Am- 
brose's parlour,  would  be,  both  for  quantity  and  flavour, 
but  *  a  beaker  full  of  the  sweet  South  '  ?  Yet  what 
would  be  the  squeezing  of  Mr.  Carlyle  ;  what  would  be 
the  squeezing  of  De  Quincey,  or  of  Landor,  or  of  Southey, 
to  the  squeezing  of  the  tremendous  Professor  Wilson — the 
mighty  Christopher,  who  for  about  thirty  years  literally 


The  Stabbing  of  Haggis  193 

talked  in  type  upon  every  matter  of  which  he  had  any 
knowledge,  and  upon  every  matter  of  which  he  had 
none ;  whose  *  words,  words,  words '  are,  indeed,  as 
Hallam,  with  unconscious  irony,  says,  *  as  the  rush  of 
mighty  waters '  ? 

What  would  be  left  after  the  squeezing  of  him  it 
would  be  hard  to  guess ;   for,  says  the  Chinese  proverb, 

*  if  what  is  said  be  not  to  the  purpose,  a  single  word  is 
already  too  much.' 

Mr.  Skelton  should  have  borne  this  maxim  in  mind 
in  his  manipulations  upon  the  '  Noctes  Ambrosianae.' 
He  loves  the  memory  of  the  fine  old  Scotsman,  and  has 
squeezed  this  enormous  pumpkin  with  fingers  that  are 
too  timid  of  grip.  In  squeezing  Professor  Wilson  you  can- 
not overdo  it.  There  are  certain  parts  we  should  have 
especially  liked  squeezed  away ;  and  among  these — will 
Mr.  Skelton  pardon  us? — are  the  *  amazingly  humourous' 
ones,  such  as  the  '  opening  of  the  haggis,'  which,  Mr. 
Skelton  tells  us,  *  manifests  the  humour  of  conception 
as  well  as  the  humour  of  character,  in  a  measure  that 
has   seldom   been   surpassed   by  the   greatest   masters  '  ; 

*  the  amazing  humour  '  of  which  consists  in  the  Shepherd's 
sticking  his  supper  knife  into  a  *  haggis  '  (a  sheep's  paunch 
filled  with  the  *  pluck  '  minced,  with  suet,  onions,  salt, 
and  pepper),  and  thereby  setting  free  such  a  flood  of 
gravy  that  the  whole  party  have  to  jump  upon  the  chairs 
and  tables  to  save  themselves  from  being  drowned  in  it  ! 
In  truth,  Mr.  Skelton  should  have  reversed  his  method 
of  selection  ;  and  if,  in  operating  upon  the  Professor's 
twelve  remaining  volumes,  he  will,  instead  of  retaining, 
omit  everything  '  amazingly  humourous,'  he  will  be  the 
best  Wilson-squeezer  imaginable. 

Yet,  his  intentions  here  were  as  good  as  could  be. 
The  '  Noctes  '  are  dying  of  dropsy,  so  Mr.  Skelton,  to 

W.-D.  13 


1 94  The  '  Athenaeum' 

save   them,   squeezes   away  all  the  political  events — so 
important  once,   so  unimportant  now — all  the   foolish 
laudation,  and  more  foolish  abuse  of  those  who  took 
part  in  them.     He  eliminates  all  the  critiques  upon  all 
those  *  greatest  poems '  and  those  '  greatest  novels  of 
the  age  '  written  by  Christopher's  friends — friends  so 
famous  once,  so  peacefully  forgotten  now.     And  he  has 
left  what    he  calls  the  '  Comedy  of  the  Noctes  Am- 
brosianae,'    i.e.  *  that  portion  of  the  work  which  deals 
with  or  presents  directly  and  dramatically  to  the  reader, 
human  life,  and  character,  and  passion,  as  distinguished 
from  that  portion  of  it  which  is  critical,  and  devoted  to 
the  discussion  of  subjects  of  literary,  artistic,  or  political 
interest   only.'     And,   although   Mr.    Skelton   uses   thus 
the  word  *  comedy  '  in  its  older  and  wider  meaning,  it  is 
evident  that  it  is  as  an  '  amazing  humourist '  that  he 
would  present  to  our  generation  the  great  Christopher 
North.      And  assuredly,  at  this  the  '  delighted  spirit '  of 
Christopher  smiles  delightedly  in  Hades.     For,  however 
the  '  Comic  Muse  '  may  pout  upon  hearing  from  Mr. 
Skelton   that    '  the   "  Noctes   Ambrosianas "   belong   to 
her,'  it  is  clear  that  the  one  great  desire  of  Wilson's  life 
was  to  cultivate  her — was  to  be  an  *  amazing  humourist,' 
in  short.     It  is  clear,  besides,  that  there  was  one  special 
kind  of  humour  which  he  most  of  all  affected,  that  which 
we  call  technically  *  Rabelaisian.'      To  have  gone  down 
to   posterity  as   the   great   English   Rabelaisian   of    the 
nineteenth    century,    Christopher    North    would    have 
freely  given  all  his  deserved  fame  as  a  prose  poet,  and  all 
the  thirty  thousand  pounds  hard  cash  of  which  he  was 
despoiled  to  boot.      His  personality  was  enormous.    He 
had   more   of   that   demonic   element — of   which   since 
Goethe's  time  we  have  heard  so  much — than  any  man  in 
Scotland,     Everybody  seems   to  have  been  dominated 


Scott's  Humour  and  Wilson's  195 

by  him.  De  Quincey,  with  a  finer  intellect  than  even 
his  own — and  that  is  using  strong  language — ^looked  up 
to  him  as  a  spaniel  looks  up  to  his  master.  It  is  posi- 
tively ludicrous,  while  reading  De  Quincey's  *  Auto- 
biographic Sketches,'  to  come  again  and  again  upon 
the  naYve  refrain  :  '  I  think  so,  so  does  Professor  Wilson.' 
Gigantic  as  was  the  egotism  of  the  Opium-eater,  it  was 
overshadowed  by  the  still  more  gigantic  egotism  of 
Christopher  North.  In  this,  as  in  everything  else,  he 
was  the  opposite  of  the  finest  Scottish  humourist  since 
Burns,  Sir  Walter  Scott.  Scott's  desire  was  to  create 
eccentric  humourous  characters,  but  to  remain  the 
simple  Scottish  gentleman  himself.  Wilson's  great 
ambition  was  to  be  an  eccentric  humourous  character 
himself ;  for  your  superlative  egotist  has  scarcely  even 
the  wish  to  create.  He  would  like  the  universe  to  him- 
self. If  Wilson  had  created  Falstaff,  and  if  you  had 
expressed  to  him  your  admiration  of  the  truthfulness  of 
that  character,  he  would  have  taken  you  by  the  shoulder 
and  said,  with  a  smile :  *  Don't  you  see,  you  fool,  that 
Falstaff  is  I — John  Wilson  ?  '  He  always  wished  it  to 
be  known  that  the  Ettrick  Shepherd  and  Tickler  were 
John  Wilson — as  much  Wilson  as  Kit  North  himself,  or, 
rather,  what  he  would  have  liked  John  Wilson  to  be  con- 
sidered. This  determination  to  be  a  humourous  character 
it  was — and  no  lack  of  literary  ambition — that  caused 
him  to  squander  his  astonishing  powers  in  the  way  that 
Mr.  Skelton,  and  all  of  us  who  admire  the  man,  lament. 

Many  articles  in  *  Blackwood ' — notably  the  one 
upon  Shakspeare's  four  great  tragedies  and  the  one  in 
which  he  discusses  Coleridge's  poetry — show  that  his 
insight  into  the  principles  of  literary  art  was  true  and 
deep — far  too  true  and  deep  for  him  to  be  ignorant  of 
this  inexorable  law,  that  nothing  can  live  in  literature 


196  The  *  AthenEBum  * 

without  form,  nothing  but  humour ;  but  that,  let  this 
flowery  crown  of  literature  show  itself  in  the  most  formless 
kind  of  magazine-article  or  review-essay,  and  the  writer 
is  secure  of  his  place  according  to  his  merits. 

Has  Wilson  secured  such  a  place  ?  We  fear  not ; 
and  if  Skelton  were  to  ask  us,  on  our  oath,  why  Wilson's 
fourteen  volumes  of  brilliant,  eloquent,  and  picturesque 
writing  are  already  in  a  sadly  moribund  state,  while  such 
slight  and  apparently  fugitive  essays  as  the  *  Coverley  ' 
papers,  the  essays  of  Elia,  and  the  hurried  review  articles 
of  Sydney  Smith,  seem  to  have  more  vitality  than  ever, 
we  fear  that  our  answer  would  have  to  be  this  bipartite 
one  :  first,  that  mere  elaborated  intellectual  '  humour  * 
has  the  seeds  of  dissolution  in  it  from  the  beginning, 
while  temperamental  humour  alone  can  live ;  and, 
secondly,  that  Wilson  was  probably  not  temperamentally 
a  humourist  at  all,  and  certainly  not  temperamentally 
a  Rabelaisian.  But  let  us,  by  way  of  excuse  for  this 
rank  blasphemy,  say  what  precise  meaning  we  attach  to 
the  word  '  Rabelaisian  ' — though  the  subject  is  so  wide 
that  there  is  no  knowing  whither  it  may  lead  us.  With- 
out venturing  upon  a  new  definition  of  humour,  this  we 
will  venture  to  say,  that  true  humour,  that  is  to  say,  the 
humour  of  temperament,  is  conveniently  divisible  into 
two  kinds  :  Cervantic  humour,  i.e.  the  amused,  philo- 
sophic mood  of  the  dramatist — the  comedian ;  and 
Rabelaisian  humour,  i.e.  the  lawless  abandonment  of 
mirth,  flowing  mostly  from  exuberance  of  health  and 
animal  spirits,  with  a  strong  recognition  of  the  absurdity 
of  human  life  and  the  almighty  joke  of  the  Cosmos — a 
mood  which  in  literature  is  rarer  than  in  life — rarer, 
perhaps,  because  animal  spirits  are  not  the  common  and 
characteristic  accompaniments  of  the  literary  tempera- 
ment. 


Cervantic  and  Rabelaisian  Humour      197 

Of  Cervantic  humour  Wilson  has,  of  course,  abso- 
lutely nothing.  For  this,  the  fairest  flower  in  the 
garden,  cannot  often  take  root,  save  in  the  most  un- 
egotistic  souls.  It  belongs  to  the  Chancers,  the  Shaks- 
peares,  the  Molieres,  the  Addisons,  the  Fieldings,  the 
Steeles,  the  Scotts,  the  Miss  Austens,  the  George 
Eliots — upon  whom  the  rich  tides  of  the  outer  life  come 
breaking  and  drowning  the  egotism  and  yearning  for  self- 
expression  which  is  the  life  of  smaller  souls.  Among 
these — to  whom  to  create  is  everything — Sterne  would 
perhaps  have  been  greatest  of  all  had  he  never  known 
Hall  Stevenson,  and  never  read  Rabelais ;  while 
Dickens's  growth  was  a  development  from  Rabelaisianism 
to  Cervantism.  But  surely  so  delicate  a  critic  as  Mr. 
Skelton  has  often  proved  himself  to  be,  is  not  going  to 
seriously  tell  us  that  there  is  one  ray  of  dramatic  humour 
to  be  found  in  Wilson.  Why,  the  man  had  not  even 
the  mechanical  skill  of  varying  the  locutions  and 
changing  the  styles  of  his  two  or  three  characters. 
Even  the  humourless  Plato  could  do  that.  Even  the 
humourless  Landor  could  do  that.  But,  strip  the 
*  Shepherd's  '  talk  of  its  Scottish  accent  and  it  is  nothing 
but  those  same  appalling  mighty  waters  whose  rush  in 
the  *  Recreations '  and  the  *  Essays '  we  are  so  familiar 
with.  While,  as  to  his  clumsy  caricature  of  the  sesqui- 
pedalian language  of  De  Quincey,  that  is  such  obtrusive 
caricature  that  illusion  seems  to  be  purposely  destroyed, 
and  the  '  Opium-Eater  '  becomes  a  fantastic  creature 
of  Farce,  and  not  of  Comedy  at  all. 

The  '  amazing  humour '  of  Wilson,  then,  is  not 
Cervantic.  Is  it  Rabelaisian  ?  Again,  we  fear  not. 
Very  likely  the  genuine  Rabelaisian  does  not  commonly 
belong  to  the  '  writing  fellows '  at  all.  We  have  had 
the  good  luck  to  come  across  two  Rabelaisians  in  our  time. 


19^  The  'Athenaeum* 

One  was  a  lawyer,  who  hated  literature  with  a  beautiful 
and  a  pathetic  hatred.  The  other  was  a  drunken 
cobbler,  who  loved  it  with  a  beautiful  and  a  pathetic  love. 
And  we  have  just  heard  from  one  of  our  finest  critics 
that  a  true  Rabelaisian  is,  at  this  moment,  to  be  found — 
where  he  ought  to  be  found — at  Stratford-on-Avon. 
This  is  interesting.  Yet,  as  there  were  heroes  before 
Agamemnon,  so  there  were  Rabelaisians,  even  among  the 
*  writing  fellows,'  before  Rabelais ;  the  greatest  of 
them,  of  course,  being  Aristophanes,  though,  from  all 
we  hear,  it  may  be  reasonably  feared  that  when 
Alcibiades,  instead  of  getting  damages  out  of  Eupolis 
for  libel,  *  in  a  duck-pond  drowned  him,'  he  thereby 
extinguished  for  ever  a  Rabelaisian  of  the  very  first  rank. 
But  we  can  only  judge  from  what  we  have  ;  and,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  tabooed  Lysistrata,  the  *  Birds '  alone 
puts  Aristophanes  at  the  top  of  all  pre-Rabelaisian 
Rabelaisians.  But  when  those  immortal  words  came 
from  that  dying  bed  at  Meudon  : '  Let  down  the  curtain  ; 
the  farce  is  done,'  they  were  prophetic  as  regards  the 
literary  Rabelaisians — prophetic  in  this,  that  no  writer 
has  since  thoroughly  caught  the  Rabelaisian  mood — the 
mood,  that  is,  of  the  cosmic  humourist,  gasping  with 
merriment  as  he  gobbles  huge  piles  of  meat  and  guzzles 
from  huge  flagons  of  wine.  Yet,  if  his  mantle  has  fallen 
upon  no  one  pair  of  shoulders,  a  corner  of  it  has  dropped 
upon  several ;  for  the  great  Cure  divides  his  qualities 
among  his  followers  impartially,  giving  but  one  to  each, 
like  the  pine-apple  in  the  '  Paradise  of  Fruits,'  from 
which  every  other  fruit  in  the  garden  drew  its  own 
peculiar  flavour,  and  then  charged  its  neighbour  fruits 
with  stealing  theirs.  Among  a  few  others,  it  may  be 
said  that  the  cosmic  humour  has  fallen  to  Swift  (in 
whom,  however,  earnestness  half  stifled  it)  Sterne,  and 


'  JoUy-doggism '  199 

Richter ;  while  the  animal  spirits — the  love  of  life — 
the  fine  passion  for  victuals  and  drink — has  fallen  to 
several  more,  notably  to  Thomas  Amory,  the  creator  of 

*  John  Buncle  ' ;  to  Herrick,  to  old  John  Skelton,  to 
Burns  (in  the  '  Jolly  Beggars '),  to  John  Skinner,  the 
author  of  *  TuUochgorum.'  Shakspeare,  having  every- 
thing, has,  of  course,  both  sides  of  Rabelaisianism  as  well 
as  Cervantism.  Some  of  the  scenes  in  *  Henry  the 
Fourth  '  and  '  Henry  the  Fifth  '  are  rich  with  it.     So  is 

*  Twelfth  Night,'  to  go  no  further.  Dickens's 
Rabelaisianism  stopped  with  '  Pickwick.'  If  Hood's 
gastric  fluid  had  been  a  thousand  times  stronger,  he 
would  have  been  the  greatest  Rabelaisian  since  Rabelais. 
A  good  man,  if  his  juices  are  right,  may  grow  into  Cer- 
vantism, but  you  cannot  grow  into  Rabelaisianism. 
Neither  can  you  simulate  it  without  coming  to  grief. 
Yet,  of  simulated  Rabelaisianism  all  literature  is,  alas  ! 
full,  and  this  is  how  the  simulators  come  to  grief ; 
simulated  cosmic  humour  becomes  the  self-conscious 
grimacing  and  sad  posture-making  of  the  harlequin 
sage,  such  as  we  see  in  those  who  make  life  hideous  by 
imitating  Mr.  Carlyle.  This  is  bad.  But  far  worse  is 
simulated  animal  spirits,  i.e.  joUy-doggism.  This  is 
insupportable.  For  we  ask  the  reader — who  may  very 
likely  have  been  to  an  undergraduates'  wine-party,  or 
to  a  medical  students'  revel,  or  who  may  have  read  the 
'  Noctes  Ambrosianae  ' — we  seriously  and  earnestly  ask 
him  whether,  among  all  the  dreary  things  of  this  some- 
times dreary  life,  there  is  anything  half  so  dreadful  as 
joUy-doggism. 

And  now  we  come  reluctantly  to  the  point.  It 
breaks  our  heart  to  say  to  Mr.  Skelton — for  we  beHeved 
in  Professor  Wilson  once — it  breaks  our  heart  to  say  that 
Wilson's  Rabelaisianism  is  nothing  but  joUy-doggism  of 


200  The  '  Athenaeum  * 

the  most  prepense,  affected,  and  piteous  kind.  In 
reading  the  '  Noctes '  we  feel,  as  Jefferson's  Rip  van 
Winkle  must  have  felt,  surrounded  by  the  ghosts  on  the 
top  of  the  Katskill  mountains.  We  say  to  ourselves, 
*  How  comparatively  comfortable  we  should  feel  if  those 
bloodless,  marrowless  spectres  wouldn't  pretend  to  be 
jolly — if  they  would  not  pretend  to  be  enjoying  their 
phantom  bowls  and  their  ghostly  liquor  !  ' 

Though  John  Skinner  and  Thomas  Amory  have 
but  a  small  endowment  of  the  great  master's  humour, 
their  animal  spirits  are  genuine.  They  do  not  hop, 
skip,  and  jump  for  effect.  Their  friskiness  is  the  friski- 
ness  of  the  retriever  puppy  when  let  loose  ;  of  the 
urchin  who  runs  shrieking  against  the  shrieking  wind  in 
the  unsyllabled  tongue  that  all  creatures  know,  *  I  live, 
I  live,  I  live ! '  But,  whatever  might  have  been  the 
physical  health  of  Wilson,  there  is  a  hollow  ring  about 
the  literary  cheerfulness  of  the  '  Noctes  '  that,  not- 
withstanding all  that  has  been  said  to  the  contrary, 
makes  us  think  that  he  was  at  heart  almost  a  melancholy 
man  ;  that  makes  us  think  that  the  real  Wilson  is  the 
Wilson  of  the  *  Isle  of  Palms,'  '  The  City  of  the  Plague,' 
of  the  '  Trials  of  Margaret  Lyndsay,'  of  the  '  Lights 
and  Shadows  of  Scottish  Life,'  Wilson,  the  Words- 
worthian,  the  lover  of  Nature,  whom  Jeffrey  describes 
when  he  says  that  '  almost  the  only  passions  with  which 
his  poetry  is  conversant  are  the  gentler  sympathies  of  our 
nature — tender  compassion — confiding  affection,  and 
gentleness  and  sorrow.' 

He  wished  to  be  thought  a  rollicking,  devil-me-care 
protagonist,  a  good-tempered  giant  ready  to  swallow 
with  a  guffaw  the  whole  cockney  army  if  necessary. 
This  kind  of  man  he  may  have  been — Mr.  Skelton 
inferentially  says  he  was ;  all  we  know  is  that  his  writings 


The  Common  Elements  of  Mankind      201 

lead  us  to  think  he  was  playing  a  part.     A  temperamental 
humourist,  we  say  decidedly,  he  was  not. 

Is  there,  then,  no  humour  to  be  found  in  this  book  ? 
In  a  certain  sense  no  doubt  humour  may  be  found  there. 
Just  as  science  tells  us  that  all  the  stars  in  heaven  are 
composed  of  pretty  much  the  same  elements  as  the 
familiar  earth  on  which  we  live,  or  dream  we  live,  so  is 
every  one  among  us  composed  of  the  same  elements  as 
all  the  rest,  and  one  of  the  most  important  elements 
common  to  all  human  kind  is  humour.  And,  if  a  man 
takes  to  expressing  in  literary  forms  the  little  humour 
within  him,  it  is  but  natural  that  the  more  vigorous,  the 
more  agile  is  his  intellect  and  the  greater  is  his  literary 
skill,  the  more  deceptive  is  his  mere  intellectual  humour, 
the  more  telling  his  wit.  Now,  Wilson's  intellect  was 
exceedingly  and  wonderfully  fine.  As  strong  as  it  was 
swift,  it  could  fly  over  many  a  wide  track  of  knowledge 
and  of  speculation  unkenned  by  not  a  few  of  those  who 
now-a-days  would  underrate  him,  dropping  a  rain  of 
diamonds  from  his  wings  like  the  fabulous  bird  of  North 
Cathay." 

No  sooner  had  the  article  appeared  than  Appleton 
went  to  Danes  Inn  and  saw  the  author  of  it.  Appleton 
was  in  a  state  of  great  excitement,  and  indeed  of  great 
rage,  for  at  that  time  there  was  considerable  rivalry 
between  the  '  Athenaeum  '  and  the  '  Academy.' 

"  You  belong  to  us,"  said  Appleton.  "  The 
*  Academy  '  is  the  proper  place  for  you.  You  and  I 
have  been  friends  for  a  long  time,  and  so  have  Rossetti 
and  the  rest  of  us,  and  yet  you  go  into  the  enemy's 
camp." 

"  And  shall  I  tell  you  why  I  have  joined  the 
'  Athenaeum  '    in    place    of    the    '  Academy  '  ?  "    said 


202  The  '  Athenaeum  ' 

Watts ;  "  it  is  simply  because  MacColl  invited  me,  and 
you  did  not." 

"  For  months  and  months  I  have  been  urging  you  to 
write  in  the  *  Academy,'  "  said  Appleton. 

"  That  is  true,  no  doubt,"  said  Watts,  "  but  while 
MacColl  offered  me  an  important  post  on  his  paper, 
and  in  the  literary  department,  too,  you  invited  me  to 
do  the  drudgery  of  melting  down  into  two  columns 
books  upon  metaphysics.  It  is  too  late,  my  dear  boy, 
it  is  too  late.  If  to  join  the  '  Athenaeum '  is  to  go 
into  the  camp  of  the  Philistines,  why,  then,  a  Philis- 
tine am  I." 

I  do  not  know  whether  at  that  time  Shirley  (as  Sir 
John  Skelton  was  then  called)  and  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
were  friends,  but  I  know  they  were  friends  afterwards. 
Shirley,  in  his  '  Reminiscences  *  of  Rossetti,  like  most 
of  his  friends,  urged  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  to  write  a 
memoir  of  the  poet-painter.  I  do  know,  however, 
that  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  besides  cherishing  an  affectionate 
memory  of  Sir  John  Skelton  as  a  man,  is  a  genuine 
admirer  of  the  Shirley  Essays.  I  have  heard  him  say 
more  than  once  that  Skelton's  style  had  a  certain  charm 
for  him,  and  he  could  not  understand  why  Skelton's 
position  is  not  as  great  as  it  deserves  to  be.  ^  Scots- 
men,' he  said,  '  often  complain  that  English  critics  are 
slow  to  do  them  justice.  This  idea  was  the  bane  of  my 
dear  old  friend  John  Nichol's  life.  He  really  seemed  to 
think  that  he  was  languishing  and  withering  under  the 
ban  of  a  great  anti-Scottish  conspiracy  known  as  the 
Savile  Club.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  there  is 
nothing  whatever  in  the  idea  that  a  Scotsman  does  not  fight 
on  equal  terms  with  the  Englishman  in  the  great  literary 
cockpit  of  London.     To  say  the  truth,  the  Scottish  cock 


Rossetti  on  his  Friend's  Criticism       203 

is  really  longer  in  spur  and  beak  than  the  English  cock, 
and  can  more  than  take  care  of  himself.  For  my  part, 
with  the  exception  of  Swinburne,  I  really  think  that  my 
most  intimate  friends  are  either  Irish,  Scottish,  or  Welsh. 
But  I  have  sometimes  thought  that  if  Skelton  had  been 
an  Englishman  and  moved  in  English  sets,  he  would 
have  taken  an  enormously  higher  position  than  he  has 
secured,  for  he  would  have  been  more  known  among 
writers,  and  the  more  he  was  known  the  more  he  was 
liked.' 

As  will  be  seen  further  on,  before  the  review  of  the 
'  Comedy  of  the  Noctes  Ambrosianse  '  appeared, 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  had  contributed  to  the  '  Athen- 
aeum '  an  article  on  '  The  Art  of  Interviewing.' 
From  this  time  forward  he  became  the  chief  critic  of 
the  *  Athenaeum,'  and  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century 
— that  is  to  say,  until  he  published  *  The  Coming  of 
Love,'  when  he  practically,  I  think,  ceased  to  write 
reviews  of  any  kind — ^he  enriched  its  pages  with  critical 
essays  the  peculiar  features  of  which  were  their  daring 
formulation  of  first  principles,  their  profound  generaliza- 
tions, their  application  of  modern  scientific  knowledge 
to  the  phenomena  of  literature,  and,  above  all,  their 
richly  idiosyncratic  style — a  style  so  personal  that,  as 
Groome  said  in  the  remarks  quoted  in  an  earlier  chapter, 
it  signs  all  his  work. 

As  I  have  more  than  once  said,  it  is  necessary  to  dwell 
with  some  fulness  upon  these  criticisms,  because  the 
relation  between  his  critical  and  his  creative  work  is  of 
the  closest  kind.  Indeed,  it  has  been  said  by  Rossetti 
that  '  the  subtle  and  original  generalizations  upon  the 
first  principles  of  poetry  which  illumine  his  writings 
could  only  have  come  to  him  by  a  duplicate  exercise  of 
his  brain  when  he  was  writing  his  own   poetry.'     The 


204  The  '  AthensBum  ' 

great  critics  of  poetry  have  nearly  all  been  great  poets. 
Rossetti  used  humourously  to  call  him  *  The  Symposi- 
arch,'  and  no  doubt  the  influence  of  his  long  practice  of 
oral  criticism  in  Cheyne  Walk,  at  Kelmscott  Manor,  as 
well  as  in  such  opposite  gatherings  as  those  at  Dr.  Mar- 
ston's,  Madox  Brown's,  and  Mrs.  Procter's,  may  be 
traced  in  his  writings.  For  his  most  effective  criticism 
has  always  the  personal  magic  of  the  living  voice,  pro- 
ducing on  the  reader  the  winsome  effect  of  spontaneous 
conversation  overheard.  Its  variety  of  manner,  as  well 
as  of  subject,  differentiates  it  from  all  other  contemporary 
criticism.  In  it  are  found  racy  erudition,  powerful 
thought,  philosophical  speculation,  irony  silkier  than  the 
silken  irony  of  M.  Anatole  France,  airily  mischievous 
humour,  and  a  perpetual  coruscation  of  the  comic  spirit. 
To  the  *  Athenaeum '  he  contributed  essays  upon  all 
sorts  of  themes  such  as  '  The  Poetic  Interpretation  of 
Nature,'  '  The  Troubadours  and  Trouveres,'  '  The 
Children  of  the  Open  Air,'  '  The  Gypsies,'  '  Cosmic 
Humour,'  *  The  Effect  of  Evolution  upon  Literature.' 
And  although  the  most  complete  and  most  modern 
critical  system  in  the  English  language  lies  buried  in  the 
vast  ocean  of  the  '  Examiner,'  the  '  Athenaeum,'  and  the 
*  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,'  there  are  still  divers  who  are 
aware  of  its  existence,  as  is  proved  by  the  latest  apprecia- 
tion of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  work,  that  contributed  by 
Madame  Galimberti,  the  accomplished  wife  of  the 
Italian  minister,  to  the  *  Rivista  d'  Italia.'  In  this 
article  she  makes  frequent  allusions  to  the  '  Athenaeum  ' 
articles,  and  quotes  freely  from  them.  Rossetti  once 
said  that  *  the  reason  why  Theodore  Watts  was  so  little 
known  outside  the  inner  circle  of  letters  was  that  he 
sought  obscurity  as  eagerly  as  other  men  sought  fame  '  ; 
but  although  his  indifference  to  literary  reputation  is  so 


The  Temper  of  his  Reviewing         205 

invincible  that  it  has  baffled  all  the  efforts  of  all  his  friends 
to  persuade  him  to  collect  his  critical  essays,  his  influence 
over  contemporary  criticism  has  been  and  is  and  will 
be  profound. 

There  is  no  province  of  pure  literature  which  his  criti- 
cism leaves  untouched  ;  but  it  is  in  poetry  that  it  cul- 
minates. His  treatise  in  the  '  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  ' 
on  *  Poetry '  is  alone  sufficient  to  show  how  deep  has 
been  his  study  of  poetic  principles.  The  essay  on  the 
'  Sonnet,'  too,  which  appeared  in  *  Chambers's  Ency- 
clopaedia,' is  admitted  by  critics  of  the  sonnet  to  be  the 
one  indispensable  treatise  on  the  subject.  It  has  been 
much  discussed  by  foreign  critics,  especially  by  Dr.  Karl 
Leutzner  in  his  treatise,  '  Uber  das  Sonett  in  der 
Englischen  Dichtung.'  ^ 

The  principles  upon  which  he  carried  on  criticism  in 
the  '  Athenaeum '  are  admirably  expressed  in  the  follow- 
ing dialogue  between  him  and  Mr.  G.  B.  Burgin,  who 
approached  him  as  the  representative  of  the  *  Idler.' 
The  allusion  to  the  *  smart  slaters '  will  be  sufficient  to 
indicate  the  approximate  date  of  the  interview. 


"  Having  read  your  treatise  on  poetry  in  the  *  En- 
cyclopaedia Britannica,'  which,  it  is  said,  has  been  an 
influence  in  every  European  literature,  I  want  to  ask 
whether  a  critic  so  deeply  learned  in  all  the  secrets  of 
poetic  art,  and  who  has  had  the  advantages  of  compar- 
ing his  own  opinions  with  those  of  all  the  great  poets  of 
his  time,  takes  a  hopeful  or  despondent  view  of  the  con- 
dition of  English  poetry  at  the  present  moment.  There 
are  those  who  run  down  the  present  generation  of  poets, 
but  on  this  subject  the  men  who  are  really  entitled  to 
speak   can    be    counted    on    the    fingers   of   one   hand. 


2o6  The  *  Athenaeum ' 

It  would  be  valuable  to  know  whether  our  leading 
critic  is  in  sympathy  with  the  poetry  of  the  present 
hour." 

"  I  do  not  for  a  moment  admit  that  I  am  the  leading 
critic.  To  say  the  truth,  I  am  often  amused,  and  often 
vexed,  at  the  grotesque  misconception  that  seems  to  be 
afloat  as  to  my  relation  to  criticism.  Years  ago,  Russell 
Lowell  told  me  that  all  over  the  United  States  I  was 
identified  with  every  paragraph  of  a  certain  critical 
journal  in  which  I  sometimes  write  ;  and,  judging  from 
the  droll  attacks  that  are  so  often  made  upon  me  by  out- 
side paragraph  writers,  the  same  misconception  seems  to 
be  spreading  in  England — attacks  which  the  smiling  and 
knowing  public  well  understands  to  spring  from  writing 
men  who  have  not  been  happy  in  their  relations  with  the 
reviewers." 

"  It  has  been  remarked  that  you  never  answer  any 
attack  in  the  newspapers,  howsoever  unjust  or  absurd." 

"  I  do  not  believe  in  answering  attacks.  The  public, 
as  I  say,  knows  that  there  is  a  mysterious  and  inscrutable 
yearning  in  the  slow-worm  to  bite  with  the  fangs  of  the 
adder,  and  every  attack  upon  a  writer  does  him  more  good 
than  praise  would  do.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  have 
no  connexion  whatever  with  any  journal  save  that  of  a 
student  of  letters  who  finds  it  convenient  on  occasion  to 
throw  his  meditations  upon  literary  art  and  the  laws  that 
govern  it  in  the  form  of  a  review.  It  is  a  bad  method, 
no  doubt,  of  giving  expression  to  one's  excogitations,  and 
although  I  do  certainly  contrive  to  put  careful  criticisms 
into  my  articles,  I  cannot  imagine  more  unbusinesslike 
reviewing  than  mine.  Yet  it  has  one  good  quality,  I 
think — it  is  never  unkindly.  I  never  will  take  a  book  for 
review  unless  I  can  say  something  in  its  favour,  and  a 
good  deal  in  its  favour," 


The  '  Smart  Slaters  *  Slated  207 

"  Then    you     never    practise     the     smart    *  slating ' 
which  certain  would-be  critics  indulge  in  ?  " 

"  Never  !  In  the  first  place,  it  would  afford  me  no 
pleasure  to  give  pain  to  a  young  writer.  In  the  next 
place,  this  '  smart  slating,'  as  you  call  it,  is  the  very 
easiest  thing  of  achievement  in  the  world.  Give  me  the 
aid  of  a  good  amanuensis,  and  I  will  engage  to  dictate 
as  many  miles  of  such  smart  '  slating '  as  could  be 
achieved  by  any  six  of  the  smart  slaters.  A  charming 
phrase  of  yours,  '  smart  slaters '  !  But  I  leave  such 
work  to  them,  as  do  all  the  really  true  critics  of  my  time 
— men  to  whom  the  insolence  which  the  smart  slaters 
seem  to  mistake  for  wit  would  be  as  easy  as  to  me,  only 
that,  like  me,  they  hold  such  work  in  contempt.  Take 
a  critic  like  Mr.  Traill,  for  instance.  Unfortunately, 
Fate  has  decreed  that  many  hours  every  day  of  his  valu- 
able life  are  wasted  on  '  leader  '  writing,  but  there  is  in 
any  one  of  his  literary  essays  more  wit  and  humour  than 
could  be  achieved  by  all  the  smart  writers  combined; 
and  yet  how  kind  is  he  !  going  out  of  his  way  to  see  merit 
in  a  rising  poet,  and  to  foster  it.  Or  take  Grant  Allen, 
whose  good  things  flow  so  naturally  from  him.  While 
the  typical  smart  writer  is  illustrating  the  primal  curse 
by  making  his  poor  little  spiteful  jokes  in  the  sweat  of  his 
poor  little  spiteful  brow,  Grant  Allen's  good-natured 
sayings  have  the  very  wit  that  the  unlucky  sweater  and 
'  slater  '  is  trying  for.  Read  what  he  said  about  William 
Watson,  and  see  how  kind  he  is.  Compare  his  geniality 
with  the  scurrility  of  the  smart  writers.  Again,  take  An- 
drew Lang,  perhaps  the  most  variously  accomplished  man 
of  letters  in  England  or  in  Europe,  and  compare  his  genial- 
ity with  the  scurrility  of  the  smart  writers.  But  it  was  not, 
I  suppose,  of  such  as  they  that  you  came  to  talk  about. 
You  are  asking  me  whether  I  am  in  sympathy  with  the 


2o8  The  *  Athenaeum  ' 

younger  writers  of  my  time.  My  answer  is  that  I  cannot 
imagine  any  one  to  be  more  in  sympathy  with  them  than 
I  am.  In  spite  of  the  disparity  of  years  between  me  and 
the  youngest  of  them,  I  believe  I  number  many  of  them 
among  my  warmest  and  most  loyal  friends,  and  that  is 
because  I  am  in  true  sympathy  with  their  work  and  their 
aims.  No  doubt  there  are  some  points  in  which  they 
and  I  agree  to  differ." 

"  And  what  about  our  contemporary  novelists  ? 
Perhaps  you  do  not  give  attention  to  fiction  ?  " 

"  Give  attention  to  novels !  Why,  if  I  did  not,  I 
should  not  give  attention  to  literature  at  all.  In  a  true 
and  deep  sense  all  pure  literature  is  fiction — to  use  an 
extremely  inadequate  and  misleading  word  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  the  right  phrase,  '  imaginative  representation.' 
*The  Iliad,'  'The  Odyssey,'  'The  ^neid,'  'The 
Divina  Commedia,'  are  fundamentally  novels,  though 
in  verse,  as  certainly  novels  as  is  the  latest  story  by  the 
most  popular  of  our  writers.  The  greatest  of  all  writers 
of  the  novelette  is  the  old  Burmese  parable  writer, 
who  gave  us  the  story  of  the  girl-mother  and  the  mus- 
tard-seed. A  time  which  has  given  birth  to  such 
novelists  as  many  of  ours  of  the  present  day  is  a  great, 
and  a  very  great,  time  for  the  English  novel.  Criticism 
will  have  to  recognize,  and  at  once,  that  the  novel,  now- 
a-days,  stands  plump  in  the  front  rank  of  the  '  literature 
of  power,'  and  if  criticism  does  not  so  recognize  it,  so 
much  the  worse  for  criticism,  I  think.  That  the  novel 
will  grow  in  importance  is,  I  say,  quite  certain.  In 
such  a  time  as  ours  (as  I  have  said  in  print),  poetry  is 
like  the  knickerbockers  of  a  growing  boy — it  has  become 
too  small  somehow  ;  it  is  not  quite  large  enough  for  the 
growing  limbs  of  life.  The  novel  is  more  flexible  ;  it 
can  be  stretched  to  fit  the  muscles  as  they  swell." 


Anonymous  Criticism  209 

"I  will  conclude  by  asking  you  what  I  have  asked 
another  eminent  critic :  What  is  your  opinion  of  anony- 
mity in  criticism  ?  " 

"  Well,  there  I  am  a  *  galled  jade  '  that  must  needs 
*  wince  '  a  little.  No  doubt  I  write  anonymously  my- 
self, but  that  is  because  I  have  not  yet  mastered  that 
dislike  of  publicity  which  has  kept  me  back,  and  my  writ- 
ing seems  to  lose  its  elasticity  with  its  anonymity.  The 
chief  argument  against  anonymous  criticism  I  take  to  be 
this  :  That  any  scribbler  who  can  get  upon  an  important 
journal  is  at  once  clothed  with  the  journal's  own  author- 
ity— and  the  same  applies,  of  course,  to  the  dishonest 
critic ;  and  this  is  surely  very  serious.  With  regard  to 
dishonest  criticism  it  is  impossible  for  the  most  wary 
editor  to  be  always  on  his  guard  against  it.  An  editor 
cannot  read  all  the  books,  nor  can  he  know  the  innumer- 
able ramifications  of  the  literary  world.  When  Jones 
asks  him  for  Brown's  book  for  review,  the  editor  cannot 
know  that  Jones  has  determined  to  praise  it  or  to  cut  it 
up  irrespective  of  its  merits ;  and  then,  when  the  puif  or 
attack  comes  in,  it  is  at  once  clothed  with  the  authority, 
not  of  Jones's  name,  but  that  of  the  journal. 

In  the  literary  arena  itself  the  truth  of  the  case  may 
be  known,  but  not  in  the  world  outside,  and  it  must  not 
be  supposed  but  that  great  injustice  may  flow  from  this. 
I  myself  have  more  than  once  heard  a  good  book  spoken 
of  with  contempt  in  London  Society,  and  heard  quoted 
the  very  words  of  some  hostile  review  which  I  have 
known  to  be  the  work  of  a  spiteful  foe  of  the  writer  of 
the  book,  or  of  some  paltry  fellow  who  was  quite  incom- 
petent to  review  anything." 

Now  that  the  day  of  the  '  smart  slaters '  is  over,  it  is 
interesting  to  read  in  connection  with  these  obiter  dicta 
w.-D.  14 


2 1  o  The  '  Athenaeum  ' 

the  following  passage  from  the  article  in  which  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton,  on  the  seventieth  birthday  of  the  'Athen- 
2eum/spoke  of  its  record  and  its  triumphs  : — 

"  The  enormous  responsibility  of  anonymous  criticism 
is  seen  in  every  line  contributed  by  the  Maurice  and 
Sterling  group  who  spoke  through  its  columns.  Even 
for  those  who  are  behind  the  scenes  and  know 
that  the  critique  expresses  the  opinion  of  only  one 
writer,  it  is  difficult  not  to  be  impressed  by  the  accent 
of  authority  in  the  editorial  *  we.'  But  with  regard 
to  the  general  public,  the  reader  of  a  review  article 
finds  it  impossible  to  escape  from  the  authority  of 
the  '  we,'  and  the  power  of  a  single  writer  to  benefit  or 
to  injure  an  author  is  so  great  that  none  but  the  most 
deeply  conscientious  men  ought  to  enter  the  ranks  of 
the  anonymous  reviewers.  These  were  the  views  of 
Maurice  and  Sterling  ;  and  that  they  are  shared  by  all 
the  best  writers  of  our  time  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
Some  very  illustrious  men  have  given  very  emphatic 
expression  to  them.  On  a  certain  memorable  occasion, 
at  a  little  dinner-party  at  i6  Cheyne  Walk,  one  of  the 
guests  related  an  anecdote  of  his  having  accidentally  met 
an  old  acquaintance  who  had  deeply  disgraced  himself, 
and  told  how  he  had  stood  '  dividing  the  swift  mind  ' 
as  to  whether  he  could  or  could  not  offer  the  man  his 
hand.  '  I  think  I  should  have  offered  him  mine,'  said 
Rossetti,  '  although  no  one  detests  his  offence  more  than 
I  do.'  And  then  the  conversation  ran  upon  the  question 
as  to  the  various  kinds  of  offenders  with  whom  old 
friends  could  not  shake  hands.  '  There  is  one  kind  of 
miscreant,'  said  Rossetti,  '  whom  you  have  forgotten 
to  name — a  miscreant  who  in  kind  of  meanness  and 
infamy  cannot  well  be  beaten,  the  man  who  in  an  anony- 


Responsibility  of  Criticism  211 

mous  journal  tells  the  world  that  a  poem  or  picture  is 
bad  when  he  knows  it  to  be  good.  That  is  the  man  who 
should  never  defile  my  hand  by  his  touch.  By  God,  if 
I  met  such  a  man  at  a  dinner-table  I  must  not  kick  him, 
I  suppose  ;  but  I  could  not,  and  would  not,  taste  bread 
and  salt  with  him.  I  would  quietly  get  up  and  go.' 
Tennyson,  on  afterwards  being  told  this  story,  said, 
'  And  who  would  not  do  the  same  ?  Such  a  man  has 
been  guilty  of  sacrilege — sacrilege  against  art.'  Maurice, 
Sterling,  and  the  other  writers  in  the  first  volume  of  the 
*  Athen^um '  worked  on  the  great  principle  that  the 
critic's  primary  duty  is  to  seek  and  to  bring  to  light 
those  treasures  of  art  and  literature  that  the  busy  world 
is  only  too  apt  to  pass  by.  Their  pet  abhorrence  was 
the  cheap  smartness  of  Jeffrey  and  certain  of  his  co- 
adjutors ;  and  from  its  commencement  the  '  Athenaeum  ' 
has  striven  to  avoid  slashing  and  smart  writing.  A 
difficult  thing  to  avoid,  no  doubt,  for  nothing  is  so  easy 
to  achieve  as  that  insolent  and  vulgar  slashing  which  the 
half-educated  amateur  thinks  so  clever.  Of  all  forms 
of  writing,  the  founders  of  the  '  Athenaeum  '  held  the 
shallow,  smart  style  to  be  the  cheapest  and  also  the 
most  despicable.  And  here  again  the  views  of  the 
'  Athenaeum '  have  remained  unchanged.  The  critic 
who  works  '  without  a  conscience  or  an  aim '  knows 
only  too  well  that  it  pays  to  pander  to  the  most  lament- 
able of  all  the  weaknesses  of  human  nature — the  love 
that  people  have  of  seeing  each  other  attacked  and 
vilified  ;  it  pays  for  a  time,  until  it  defeats  itself.  For 
although  man  has  a  strong  instinct  for  admiration — else 
had  he  never  reached  his  present  position  in  the  con- 
scious world — he  has,  running  side  by  side  with  this 
instinct,  another  strong  instinct — the  instinct  for  con- 
tempt.    A    reviewer's    ridicule    poured    upon    a    writer 


2 1 2  The  '  Athenaeum  * 

titillates  the  reader  with  a  sense  of  his  own  superiority. 
It  is  by  pandering  to  this  lower  instinct  that  the  un- 
principled journalist  hopes  to  kill  two  birds  with  one 
stone — to  gratify  his  own  malignity  and  low-bred  love 
of  insolence,  and  to  make  profit  while  doing  so.  Al- 
though cynicism  may  certainly  exist  alongside  great 
talent,  it  is  far  more  likely  to  be  found  where  there  is  no 
talent  at  all.  Many  brilliant  writers  have  written  in 
this  journal,  but  rarely,  if  ever,  have  truth  and  honesty 
of  criticism  been  sacrificed  for  a  smart  saying.  One  of 
these  writers — the  greatest  wit  of  the  nineteenth  century 
— used  to  say,  in  honest  disparagement  of  what  were 
considered  his  own  prodigious  powers  of  wit,  *  I  will 
engage  in  six  lessons  to  teach  any  man  to  do  this  kind  of 
thing  as  well  as  I  do,  if  he  thinks  it  worth  his  while  to 
learn.'  And  the  '  Athenaeum,'  at  the  time  when  Hood 
was  reviewing  Dickens  in  its  columns,  could  have  said 
the  same  thing.  The  smart  reviewer,  however,  mistakes 
insolence  for  wit,  and  among  the  low-minded  insolence 
needs  no  teaching." 

Of  course,  in  the  office  of  an  important  literary  organ 
there  is  always  a  kind  of  terror  lest,  in  the  necessary  hurry 
of  the  work,  a  contributor  should  *  come  down  a  cropper  ' 
over  some  matter  of  fact,  and  open  the  door  to  trouble- 
some correspondence.  As  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has  said, 
the  mys-terious '  we  '  must  claim  to  be  Absolute  Wisdom, 
or  where  is  the  authority  of  the  oracle  ?  When  a  con- 
tributor '  comes  down  a  cropper,'  although  the  matter 
may  be  of  infinitesimal  importance,  the  editor  cannot,  it 
seems,  and  never  could(except  during  the  imperial  regime 
of  the  '  Saturday  Review  '  under  Cook)  refuse  to  insert 
a  correction.  Now,  as  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has  said, '  the 
smaller,  the  intelligence,  the  greater  joy  does  it  feel  in 


Herbert  Spencer  213 

setting  other  intelligences  right.'  I  have  been  told  that 
it  was  a  tradition  in  the  office  of  the  '  Examiner,'  and 
also  in  the  office  of  the  '  Athenaeum,'  that  Theodore 
Watts  had  not  only  never  been  known  to  *  come  down  a 
cropper,'  but  had  never  given  the  '  critical  gnats '  a 
chance  of  pretending  that  he  had  to.  One  day,  however, 
in  an  article  on  Frederick  Tennyson's  poems,  speaking  of 
the  position  that  the  poet  Alexander  Smith  occupied  in 
the  early  fifties,  and  contrasting  it  with  the  position  that 
he  held  at  the  time  the  article  was  written,  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  affirmed  that  once  on  a  time  Smith — the  same 
Smith  whom  '  Z '  (the  late  William  AUingham)  had 
annihilated  in  the  *  Athenseum ' — had  been  admired  by 
Alfred  Tennyson,  and  also  that  once  on  a  time  Herbert 
Spencer  had  compared  a  metaphor  of  Alexander  Smith's 
with  the  metaphors  of  Shakespeare.  The  touchiness  of 
Spencer  was  proverbial,  and  on  the  next  Monday  morn- 
ing the  editor  got  the  following  curt  note  from  the  great 
man  : — 

^  Will  the  writer  of  the  review  of  Mr.  Frederick  Tenny- 
son's poems,  which  was  published  in  your  last  number, 
please  say  where  I  have  compared  the  metaphors  of 
Shakspeare  and  Alexander  Smith  ? 

Herbert  Spencer.' 

The  editor,  taking  for  granted  that  the  heretofore 
impeccable  contributor  had  at  last  *  come  down  a 
cropper,'  sent  a  proof  of  Spencer's  note  to  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton,  and  intimated  that  it  l\ad  better  be  printed 
without  any  editorial  comment  at  all.  Of  course,  if 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  had  at  last  '  come  down  a  cropper,' 
this  would  have  been  the  wisest  plan.     But  he  returned 


214  The  '  Athen^um  * 

the  proof  of  the  letter  to  the  editor,  with  the  following 
footnote  added  to  it : — 

"  It  is  many  years  since  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  printed 
in  one  of  the  magazines  an  essay  dealing  with  the  laws  of 
cause  and  effect  in  literary  art — an  essay  so  searching  in 
its  analyses,  and  so  original  in  its  method  and  conclu- 
sions, that  the  workers  in  pure  literature  may  well 
be  envious  of  science  for  enticing  such  a  leader  away 
from  their  ranks — and  it  is  many  years  since  we  had 
the  pleasure  of  reading  it.  Our  memory  is,  therefore, 
somewhat  hazy  as  to  the  way  in  which  he  introduced 
such  metaphors  by  Alexander  Smith  as  '  I  speared  him 
with  a  jest,'  etc.  Our  only  object,  however,  in  alluding 
to  the  subject  was  to  show  that  a  poet  now  ignored  by 
the  criticism  of  the  hour,  a  poet  who  could  throw  off  such 
Shakspearean  sentences  as  this — 

My  drooping  sails 

Flap  idly  'gainst  the  mast  of  my  intent  ; 
I  rot  upon  the  waters  when  my  prow 
Should  grate  the  golden  isles — 

had  once  the  honour  of  being  admired  by  Alfred  Tenny- 
son and  favourably  mentioned  by  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer." 

Spencer  told  this  to  a  friend,  and  with  much  laughter 
said,  '  Of  course  the  article  was  Theodore  Watts's.  I 
had  forgotten  entirely  what  I  had  said  about  Shakspeare 
and  Alexander  Smith.' 

If -I  were  asked  to  furnish  a  typical  example  of  that 
combination  of  critical  insight,  faultless  memory,  and 
genial  courtesy,  which  distinguishes  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's 
writings,  I  think  I  should  select  this  bland  postscript 
to  Spencer's  letter. 


Stevenson's  '  Kidnapped  '  215 

Another  instance  of  the  care  and  insight  with  which 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  always  wrote  his  essays  is  connected 
with  Robert  Louis  Stevenson.  It  occurred  in  connection 
with  *  Kidnapped.'  I  will  quote  here  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  own  version  of  the  anecdote,  which  will  be 
found  in  the  '  Athenaeum '  review  of  the  Edinburgh 
edition  of  Stevenson's  works.  The  playful  allusion  to 
the  '  Athenaeum's '  kindness  is  very  characteristic  : — 

"  Of  Stevenson's  sweetness  of  disposition  and  his  good 
sense  we  could  quote  many  instances ;  but  let  one  suffice. 
When  '  Kidnapped  '  appeared,  although  in  reviewing  it 
we  enjoyed  the  great  pleasure  of  giving  high  praise  to 
certain  parts  of  that. delightful  narrative,  we  refused  to 
be  scared  from  making  certain  strictures.  It  occurred  to 
us  that  while  some  portions  of  the  story  were  full  of  that 
organic  detail  of  which  Scott  was  such  a  master,  and  with- 
out which  no  really  vital  story  can  be  told,  it  was  not  so 
with  certain  other  parts.  From  this  we  drew  the  con- 
clusion that  the  book  really  consisted  of  two  distinct  parts, 
two  stories  which  Stevenson  had  tried  in  vain  to  weld 
into  one.  We  surmised  that  the  purely  Jacobite  adven- 
tures of  Balfour  and  Alan  Breck  were  written  first,  and 
that  then  the  writer,  anxious  to  win  the  suffrages  of  the 
general  novel-reader  (whose  power  is  so  great  with  Byles 
the  Butcher),  looked  about  him  for  some  story  on  the  old 
lines ;  that  he  experienced  great  difficulty  in  finding  one  ; 
and  that  he  was  at  last  driven  upon  the  old  situation  of 
the  villain  uncle  plotting  to  make  away  with  the  nephew 
by  kidnapping  him  and  sending  him  off  to  the  plantations. 
The  '  Athenaeum,'  whose  kindness  towards  all  writers, 
poets  and  prosemen,  great  and  small,  has  won  for  it  such 
an  infinity  of  gratitude,  said  this,  but  in  its  usual  kind  and 
gentle  way.     This   aroused  the  wrath   of  the   Steven- 


2i6  The  'Athenaeum* 

sonians.     Yet  we  were  not  at  all  surprised  to  get  from  the 
author  of  *  Kidnapped '  himself  a  charming  letter.' 

This  letter  appears  in  Stevenson's  '^Letters,'  and  by 
the  courtesy  of  Mr.  Sidney  Colvin  and  Mr.  A.  M.  S. 
Methuen  I  am  permitted  to  reprint  it  here  : — 

Skerryvore,  Bournemouth. 

Dear  Mr.  Watts, — ^The  sight  of  the  last '  Athenaeum  ' 
reminds  me  of  you,  and  of  my  debt  now  too  long  due. 
I  wish  to  thank  you  for  your  notice  of  *  Kidnapped  '  ; 
and  that  not  because  it  was  kind,  though  for  that  also  I 
valued  it ;  but  in  the  same  sense  as  I  have  thanked  you 
before  now  for  a  hundred  articles  on  a  hundred  different 
writers.     A  critic  like  you  is  one  who  fights  the  good  fight, 
contending  with  stupidity,  and  I  would  fain  hope  not  all 
in  vain  ;  in  my  own  case,  for  instance,  surely  not  in  vain. 
What  you  say  of  the  two  parts  in  '  Kidnapped '  was 
felt  by  no  one  more  painfully  than  by  myself.     I  began  it, 
partly  as  a  lark,  partly  as  a  pot-boiler ;  and  suddenly  it 
moved,  David  and  Alan  stepped  out  from  the  canvas,  and 
I  found  I  was  in  another  world.     But  there  was  the  cursed 
beginning,  and  a  cursed  end  must  be  appended  ;  and  our 
old  friend  Byles  the  Butcher  was  plainly  audible  tapping 
at  the  back  door.     So  it  had  to  go  into  the  world,  one 
part  (as  it  does  seem  to  me)  alive,  one  part  merely  galvan- 
ised :  no  work,  only  an  essay.     For  a  man  of  tentative 
method,  and  weak  health,  and  a  scarcity  of  private  means, 
and  not  too  much  of  that  frugality  which  is  the  artist's 
proper  virtue,  the  days  of  sinecures  and  patrons  look  very 
golden  :  the  days  of  professional  literature  very  hard.    Yet 
I  do  not  so  far  deceive  myself  as  to  think  I  should  change 
my  character  by  changing  my  epoch  ;  the  sum  of  virtue 
in  our  books  is  in  a  relatio'   'of  equality  to  the  sum  of 


Stevenson*s  Admiration  of  his  Critic     217 

virtues  in  ourselves  ;  and  my  *  Kidnapped '  was  doomed, 
while  still  in  the  womb  and  while  I  was  yet  in  the  cradle, 
to  be  the  thing  it  is. 

And  now  to  the  more  genial  business  of  defence.  You 
attack  my  fight  on  board  the  *  Covenant,'  I  think  it  literal. 
David  and  Alan  had  every  advantage  on  their  side,  posi- 
tion, arms,  training,  a  good  conscience  ;  a  handful  of 
merchant  sailors,  not  well  led  in  the  first  attack,  not  led 
at  all  in  the  second,  could  only  by  an  accident  have  taken 
the  roundhouse  by  attack  ;  and  since  the  defenders  had 
firearms  and  food,  it  is  even  doubtful  if  they  could  have 
been  starved  out.  The  only  doubtful  point  with  me  is 
whether  the  seamen  would  have  ever  ventured  on  the 
second  onslaught ;  I  half  believe  they  would  not ;  still 
the  illusion  of  numbers  and  the  authority  of  Hoseason 
would  perhaps  stretch  far  enough  to  justify  the  extremity. 
— I  am,  dear  Mr.  Watts,  your  very  sincere  admirer, 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson. 

Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has  always  been  a  warm  admirer  of 
Stevenson,  of  his  personal  character  no  less  than  his  un- 
doubted genius,  and  Stevenson,  on  his  part,  in  conversa- 
tion never  failed  to  speak  of  himself,  as  in  this  letter  he 
subscribes  himself,  as  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  sincere  ad- 
mirer. But  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  admiration  of  Steven- 
son's work  was  more  tempered  with  judgment  than  was 
the  admiration  of  some  critics,  who  afterwards,  when  he 
became  too  successful,  disparaged  him.  Greatly  as  he 
admired  '  Kidnapped  '  and  '  Catriona,'  there  were  certain 
of  Stevenson's  works  for  which  his  admiration  was  quali- 
fied, and  certain  others  for  which  he  had  no  admiration 
at  all.  His  strictures  upon  the  story  which  seems  to 
have  been  at  first  the  main  source  of  Stevenson's  popu- 
larity, '  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,'  were  much  resented 


2i8  The  'Athenaeum' 

at  the  time  by  those  insincere  and  fickle  worshippers  to 
whom  I  have  already  alluded.  Yet  these  strictures  are 
surely  full  of  wisdom,  and  they  specially  show  that  wide 
sweep  over  the  entire  field  of  literature  which  is  char- 
acteristic of  all  his  criticism.  As  they  contain,  besides, 
one  of  his  many  tributes  to  Scott,  I  will  quote  them 
here  : — 

"  Take  the  little  story  '  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,'  the 
laudatory  criticism  upon  which  is  in  bulk,  as  regards  the 
story  itself,  like  the  comet's  tail  in  relation  to  the  comet. 
On  its  appearance  as  a  story,  a  '  shilling  shocker  '  for  the 
railway  bookstalls,  the  critic's  attention  was  directed  to 
its  vividness  of  narrative  and  kindred  qualities,  and  though 
perfectly  conscious  of  its  worthlessness  in  the  world  of 
literary  art,  he  might  well  be  justified  in  comparing  it  to 
its  advantage  with  other  stories  of  its  class  and  literary 
standing.  But  when  it  is  offered  as  a  classic — and  this  is 
really  how  it  is  offered — it  has  to  be  judged  by  critical 
canons  of  a  very  different  kind.  It  has  then  to  be  com- 
pared and  contrasted  with  stories  having  a  like  motive — 
stories  that  deal  with  an  idea  as  old  as  the  oldest  literature 
— as  old,  no  doubt,  as  those  primeval  days  when  man 
awoke  to  the  consciousness  that  he  is  a  moral  and  a  respon- 
sible being — stories  whose  temper  has  always  been  up  to 
now  of  the  loftiest  kind. 

It  is  many  years  since,  in  writing  of  the  '  Parables  of 
Buddhaghosha,'  it  was  our  business  to  treat  at  length  of 
the  grand  idea  of  man's  dual  nature,  and  the  many  beau- 
tiful forms  in  which  it  has  been  embodied.  We  said  then 
that,  from  the  lovely  modern  story  of  Arsene  Houssaye, 
where  a  young  man,  starting  along  life's  road,  sees  on  a 
lawn  a  beautiful  girl  and  loves  her,  and  afterwards — when 
sin  has  soiled  him — finds  that  she  was  his  own  soul,  stained 


Arda  Viraf,  etc.  219 

now  by  his  own  sin ;  and  from  the  still  more  impressive, 
though  less  lovely  modern  story  of  Edgar  Poe,  *  William 
Wilson,'  up  to  the  earliest  allegories  upon  the  subject,  no 
writer  or  story-teller  had  dared  to  degrade  by  gross  treat- 
ment a  motive  of  such  universal  appeal  to  the  great  heart 
of  the  '  Great  Man,  Mankind.'  We  traced  the  idea,  as 
far  as  our  knowledge  went,  through  Calderon,  back  to 
Oriental  sources,  and  found,  as  we  then  could  truly  affirm, 
that  this  motive — from  the  ethical  point  of  view  the  most 
pathetic  and  solemn  of  all  motives — had  been  always 
treated  with  a  nobility  and  a  greatness  that  did  honour 
to  literary  art.  Manu,  after  telling  us  that  '  single  is 
each  man  born  into  the  world — single  dies,'  implores 
each  one  to  '  collect  virtue,'  in  order  that  after  death  he 
may  be  met  by  the  virtuous  part  of  his  dual  self,  a  beau- 
tiful companion  and  guide  in  traversing  '  that  gloom 
which  is  so  hard  to  be  traversed.'  Fine  as  this  is,  it  is 
surpassed  by  an  Arabian  story  we  then  quoted  (since 
versified  by  Sir  Edwin  Arnold) — the  story  of  the  wicked 
king  who  met  after  death  a  frightful  hag  for  an  eternal 
companion,  and  found  her  to  be  only  a  part  of  his  own 
dual  nature,  the  embodiment  of  his  own  evil  deeds.  And 
even  this  is  surpassed  by  that  lovely  allegory  in  Arda  Viraf, 
in  which  a  virtuous  soul  in  Paradise,walking  amid  pleasant 
trees  whose  fragrance  was  wafted  from  God,  meets  a  part 
of  his  own  dual  nature,  a  beautiful  maiden,  who  says  to 
him,  '  O  youth,  I  am  thine  own  actions.' 

And  we  instanced  other  stories  and  allegories  equally 
beautiful,  in  which  this  supreme  thought  has  been  treated 
as  poetically  as  it  deserves.  It  was  left  for  Stevenson  to 
degrade  it  into  a  hideous  tale  of  murder  and  Whitechapel 
mystery — a  story  of  astonishing  brutality,  in  which  the 
separation  of  the  two  natures  of  the  man's  soul  is  effected 
not  by  psychological  development,  and  not  by  the  '  awful 


220  The  '  Athenaeum  * 

alchemy '  of  the  spirit-world  beyond  the  grave,  as  in  all 
the  previous  versions,  but  by  the  operation  of  a  dose  of 
some  supposed  new  drug. 

If  the  whole  thing  is  meant  as  a  horrible  joke,  in  imita- 
tion of  De  Quincey's  '  Murder  considered  as  One  of  the 
Fine  Arts,'  it  tells  poorly  for  Stevenson's  sense  of  humour. 
If  it  is  meant  as  a  serious  allegory,  it  is  an  outrage  upon 
the  grand  allegories  of  the  same  motive  with  which  most 
literatures  have  been  enriched.  That  a  story  so  coarse 
should  have  met  with  the  plaudits  that  '  Dr.  Jekyll  and 
Mr.  Hyde  '  met  with  at  the  time  of  its  publication — that 
it  should  now  be  quoted  in  leading  articles  of  important 
papers  every  few  days,  while  all  the  various  and  beautiful 
renderings  of  the  motive  are  ignored — what  does  it  mean  ? 
Is  it  a  sign  that  the  '  shrinkage  of  the  world,'  the  '  solid- 
arity of  civilisation,'  making  the  record  of  each  day's  do- 
ings too  big  for  the  day,  has  worked  a  great  change  in  our 
public  writers  ?  Is  it  that  they  not  only  have  no  time 
to  think,  but  no  time  to  read  anything  beyond  the  publi- 
cations of  the  hour  ?  Is  it  that  good  work  is  unknown 
to  them,  and  that  bad  work  is  forced  upon  them,  and 
that  in  their  busy  ignorance  they  must  needs  accept  it 
and  turn  to  it  for  convenient  illustration  ?  That  Steven- 
son should  have  been  impelled  to  write  the  story  shows 
what  the  ^  Suicide  Club  '  had  already  shown,  that  under- 
neath the  apparent  health  which  gives  such  a  charm  to 
*  Treasure  Island '  and  '  Kidnapped,'  there  was  that 
morbid  strain  which  is  so  often  associated  with  physical 
disease. 

Had  it  not  been  for  the  influence  upon  him  of  the 
healthiest  of  all  writers  since  Chaucer — Walter  Scott — 
Stevenson  might  have  been  in  the  ranks  of  those  pompous 
problem-mongers  of  fiction  and  the  stage  who  do  their 
best  to  make  life  hideous.     It  must  be  remembered  that 


Man's  Dual  Nature  221 

he  was  a  critic  first  and  a  creator  afterwards.  He  him- 
self tells  us  how  critically  he  studied  the  methods  of  other 
writers  before  he  took  to  writing  himself.  No  one  really 
understood  better  than  he  Hesiod's  fine  saying  that  the 
muses  were  born  in  order  that  they  might  be  a  forgetful- 
ness  of  evils  and  a  truce  from  cares.  No  one  understood 
better  than  he  Joubert's  saying,  '  Fiction  has  no  business 
to  exist  unless  it  is  more  beautiful  than  reality  ;  in  litera- 
ture the  one  aim  is  the  beautiful ;  once  lose  sight  of  that, 
and  you  have  the  mere  frightful  reality.'  And  for  the 
most  part  he  succeeded  in  keeping  down  the  morbid  im- 
pulses of  a  spirit  imprisoned  and  fretted  in  a  crazy  body. 
Save  in  such  great  mistakes  as  '  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr. 
Hyde,'  and  a  few  other  stories,  Stevenson  acted  upon 
Joubert's  excellent  maxim.  But  Scott,  and  Scott  alone, 
is  always  right  in  this  matter — right  by  instinct.  He 
alone  is  always  a  delight.  If  all  art  is  dedicated  to  joy, 
as  Schiller  declares,  and  if  there  is  no  higher  and  more 
serious  problem  than  how  to  make  men  happy,  then  the 
*  Waverley  Novels '  are  among  the  most  precious  things 
in  the  literature  of  the  world." 

Another  writer  of  whose  good-nature  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  always  speaks  warmly  is  Browning.  Among 
the  many  good  anecdotes  I  have  heard  him  relate  in 
this  connection,  I  will  give  one.  I  do  not  think  that 
he  would  object  to  my  doing  so. 

"  It  is  one  of  my  misfortunes,"  said  he,  "  to  be  not 
fully  worthy  (to  use  the  word  of  a  very  dear  friend  of 
mine),  of  Browning's  poetry.  Where  I  am  delighted, 
stimulated,  and  exhilarated  by  the  imaginative  and  in- 
tellectual substance  of  his  work,  I  find  his  metrical  move- 
ments in  a  general  way  not  pleasing  to  my  ear.     When  a 


222  The  'Athenaeum' 

certain  book  of  his  came  out — I  forget  which — it  devolved 
upon  me  to  review  it.  Certain  eccentricities  in  it,  for 
some  reason  or  another,  irritated  me,  and  I  expressed  my 
irritation  in  something  very  Hke  chaff.  A  close  friend  of 
mine,  a  greater  admirer  of  Browning  than  I  am  myself — 
in  fact,  Mr.  Swinburne — chided  me  for  it,  and  I  feel  that 
he  was  right.  On  the  afternoon  following  the  appearance 
of  the  article  I  was  at  the  Royal  Academy  private  view, 
when  Lowell  came  up  to  me  and  at  once  began  talking 
about  the  review.  Lowell,  I  found,  was  delighted  with 
it — said  it  was  the  most  original  and  brilliant  thing 
that  had  appeared  for  many  years.  '  But,'  said  he, 
*  You're  a  brave  man  to  be  here  where  Browning  always 
comes.'  Then,  looking  round  the  room,  he  said :  '  Why 
there  he  is,  and  his  sister  immediately  on  the  side  oppo- 
site to  us.     Surely  you  will  slip  away  and  avoid  a  meet- 

ing!' 

'  Slip  away  !  '  I  said,  '  to  avoid  Browning  !  You 
don't  know  him  as  well  as  I  do,  after  all !  Now,  let  me 
tell  you  exactly  what  will  occur  if  we  stand  here  for  a 
minute  or  two.  Miss  Browning,  whose  eyes  are  looking 
busily  over  the  room  for  people  that  Browning  ought  to 
speak  to,  in  a  moment  will  see  you,  and  in  another  mo- 
ment she  will  see  me.  And  then  you  will  see  her  turn 
her  head  to  Browning's  ear  and  tell  him  something. 
And  then  Browning  will  come  straight  across  to  me  and 
be  more  charming  and  cordial  than  he  is  in  a  general 
way,  supposing  that  be  possible.' 

'  No,  I  don't  believe  it.' 

'  If  you  were  not  such  a  Boston  Puritan,'  I  said,  '  I 
would  ask  you  what  will  you  bet  that  I  am  wrong.' 

No  sooner  had  I  uttered  these  words  than,  as  I  had 
prophesied.  Miss  Browning  did  spot,  first  Lowell  and 
then  me,  and  did  turn  and  whisper  in  Browning's  ear. 


Browning's  Amiability  223 

and  Browning  did  come  straight  across  the  room  to  us ; 
and  this  is  what  he  said,  speaking  to  me  before  he  spoke 
to  the  illustrious  American — a  thing  which  on  any  other 
occasion  he  would  scarcely  have  done  : 

'  Now,'  said  he,  '  you're  not  going  to  put  me  off 
with  generalities  any  longer.  You  promised  to  write 
and  tell  me  when  you  could  come  to  luncheon.  You 
have  never  done  so — you  will  never  do  so,  unless  I  fix 
you  with  a  distinct  day.     Will  you  come  to-morrow  ?  ' 

'  I  shall  be  dehghted,'  I  said.  And  he  turned  to 
Lowell  and  exchanged  a  few  friendly  words  with  him. 

After  these  two  adorable  people  left  us,  Lowell  said : 
'  Well,  this  is  wonderful.  You  would  have  won  the  bet. 
How  do  70U  explain  it  ?  ' 

'  I  explain  it  by  Browning's  greatness  of  soul  and 
heart.  His  position  is  so  great,  and  mine  is  so  small,  that 
an  unappreciative  review  of  a  poem  of  his  cannot  in  the 
least  degree  affect  him.  But  he  knows  that  I  am  an 
honest  man,  as  he  has  frequently  told  Tennyson,  Jowett, 
and  others.  He  wishes  to  make  it  quite  apparent  that 
he  feels  no  anger  towards  a  man  who  says  what  he  thinks 
about  a  poem.' " 

After  hearing  this  interesting  anecdote  I  had  the 
curiosity  to  turn  to  the  bound  volume  of  my  '  Athen- 
aeum '  and  read  the  article  on  '  Ferishtah's  Fancies,' 
which  I  imagine  must  have  been  the  review  in  question. 
This  is  what  I  read  : — 

'  The  poems  in  this  volume  can  only  be  described  as 
parable-poems — parable-poems,  not  in  the  sense  that 
they  are  capable  of  being  read  as  parables  (as  is  said  to 
be  the  case  with  the  '  Ruba'iyat '  of  Omar  Khayyam), 
but  parable-poems  in  the  sense  that  they  must  be  read 


224  The  '  Athensum  * 

as  parables,  or  they  show  no  artistic  raison  d'etre  at  all. 

Now  do  our  English  poets  know  what  it  is  to  write 
a  parable  poem  ?  It  is  to  set  self-conscious  philosophy 
singing  and  dancing,  like  the  young  Gretry,  to  the  tune 
of  a  waterfall.  Or  rather,  it  is  to  imprison  the  soul  of 
Dinah  Morris  in  the  lissome  body  of  Esmeralda,  and  set 
the  preacher  strumming  a  gypsy's  tambourine.  Though 
in  the  pure  parable  the  intellectual  or  ethical  motive 
does  not  dominate  so  absolutely  as  in  the  case  of  the  pure 
fable,  the  form  that  expresses  it,  yet  it  does,  nevertheless, 
so  far  govern  the  form  as  to  interfere  with  that  entire 
abandon — that  emotional  freedom — which  seems  neces- 
sary to  the  very  existence  of  song.  Indeed,  if  poetry 
must,  like  Wordsworth's  ideal  John  Bull, '  be  free  or  die  ' ; 
if  she  must  know  no  law  but  that  of  her  own  being  (as 
the  doctrine  of  '  L'art  pour  I'art '  declares)  ;  if  she  must 
not  even  seem  to  know  that  (as  the  doctrine  of  bardic 
inspiration  implies),  but  must  bend  to  it  apparently  in 
tricksy  sport  alone — how  can  she — '  the  singing  maid 
with  pictures  in  her  eyes ' — mount  the  pulpit,  read  the 
text,  and  deliver  the  sermon  ? 

In  European  literature  how  many  parable  poems 
should  we  find  where  the  ethical  motive  and  the  poetic 
form  are  not  at  deadly  strife  ?  But  we  discussed  all 
this  in  speaking  of  prose  parables,  comparing  the  stories 
of  the  Prodigal  Son  and  Kisagotami  with  even  such  per- 
fect parable  poetry  as  that  of  Jami.  We  said  then  what 
we  reiterate  now  :  that  to  sing  a  real  parable  and  make 
it  a  real  song  requires  a  genius  of  a  very  special  and 
peculiar,  if  somewhat  narrow  order — a  genius  rare,  deli- 
cate, ethereal,  such  as  can,  according  to  a  certain  Oriental 
fancy,  compete  with  the  Angels  of  the  Water  Pot  in 
floriculture.  Mr.  Browning,  being  so  fond  of  Oriental 
fancies,  and  being,  moreover,  on  terms  of  the  closest  in- 


Browning  225 

timacy  with  a  certain  fancy-weaving  dervish,  Ferishtah, 
must  be  quite  familiar  with  the  Persian  story  we  allude 
to,  the  famous  story  of  '  Poetry  and  Cabbages.'  Still, 
we  will  record  it  here  for  a  certain  learned  society. 

The  earth,  says  the  wise  dervish  Feridun,  was  once 
without  flowers,  and  men  dreamed  of  nothing  more 
beautiful  then  than  cabbages.  So  the  Angels  of  the 
Water  Pot,  watering  the  Tuba  Tree  (whose  fruit  becomes 
flavoured  according  to  the  wishes  of  the  feeder),  said  one 
to  another,  '  The  eyes  of  those  poor  cabbage  growers 
down  there  may  well  be  horny  and  dim,  having  none  of 
our  beautiful  things  to  gaze  upon  ;  for  as  to  the  earthly 
cabbage,  though  useful  in  earthly  pot,  it  is  in  colour  un- 
lovely as  ungrateful  in  perfume  ;  and  as  to  the  stars, 
they  are  too  far  off  to  be  very  clearly  mirrored  in  the  eyes 
of  folk  so  very  intent  upon  cabbages.'  So  the  Angels  of 
the  Water  Pot,  who  sit  on  the  rainbow  and  brew  the 
ambrosial  rains,  began  fashioning  flowers  out  of  the  para- 
disal  gems,  while  Israfel  sang  to  them ;  and  the  words  of 
his  song  were  the  mottoes  that  adorn  the  bowers  of  heaven. 
So  bewitching,  however,  were  the  strains  of  the  singer 
— for  not  only  has  Israfel  a  lute  for  viscera,  but  doth  he 
not  also,  according  to  the  poet — 

Breathe  a  stream  of  otto  and  balm, 

Which  through  a  woof  of  living  music  blown 

Floats,  fused,  a  warbling  rose  that  makes  all  senses  one  ? 

— SO  astonishing  were  the  notes  of  a  singer  so  furnished, 
that  the  angels  at  their  jewel  work  could  not  help  tracing 
his  coloured  and  perfumed  words  upon  the  petals.  And 
this  was  how  the  Angels  of  the  Water  Pot  made  flowers, 
and  this  is  the  story  of  '  Poetry  and  Cabbages.' 

But  the  alphabet   of   the   angels,  Feridun  goes  on  to 
declare,  is  nothing  less  than  the  celestial  charactery  of 

W.-D.  15 


226  The  '  Athenaeum  * 

heaven,  and  is  consequently  unreadable  to  all  human 
eyes  save  a  very  few — that  is  to  say,  the  eyes  of  those 
mortals  who  are  '  of  the  race  of  Israfel.'  To  common 
eyes — the  eyes  of  the  ordinary  human  cabbage-grower — 
what,  indeed,  is  that  angelic  caligraphy  with  which  the 
petals  of  the  flowers  are  ornamented  ?  Nothing  but  a 
meaningless  maze  of  beautiful  veins  and  scents  and 
colours. 

But  who  are  '  of  the  race  of  Israfel '  ?  Not  the 
prosemen,  certainly,  as  any  Western  critic  may  see  who 
will  refer  to  Kircher's  idle  nonsense  about  the  '  Alphabet 
of  the  Angels '  in  his  '  ^Edipus  Egyptiacus.'  Are  they, 
then,  the  poets  ?  This  is  indeed  a  solemn  query.  *  If,' 
says  Feridun,  '  the  mottoes  that  adorn  the  bowers  of 
Heaven  have  been  correctly  read  by  certain  Persian 
poets,  who  shall  be  nameless,  what  are  those  other 
mottoes  glowing  above  the  caves  of  hell  in  that  fiery 
alphabet  used  by  the  fiends  ?  ' 

One  kind  of  poet  only  is,  it  seems,  of  the  race  of 
Israfel — the  parable-poet — the  poet  to  whom  truth 
comes,  not  in  any  way  as  reasoned  conclusions,  not  even 
as  golden  gnomes,  but  comes  symbolized  in  concrete 
shapes  of  vital  beauty  ;  the  poet  in  whose  work  the  poetic 
form  is  so  part  and  parcel  of  the  ethical  lesson  which 
vitalizes  it  that  this  ethical  lesson  seems  not  to  give  birth 
to  the  music  and  the  colour  of  the  poem,  but  to  be  itself 
born  of  the  sweet  marriage  of  these,  and  to  be  as  inse- 
parable from  them  as  the '  morning  breath '  of  the  Sabaean 
rose  is  inalienable  from  the  innermost  petals — '  the  subtle 
odour  of  the  rose's  heart,'  which  no  mere  chemistry  of 
man,  but  only  the  morning  breeze,  can  steal." 

It  was  such  writing  as  this  which  made  it  quite  super- 
fluous for  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  to  sign  his  articles,  and 


Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  Various  Styles       227 

we  have  only  to  contrast  it — or  its  richness  and  its  rareness 
— with  the  na'lve,  simple,  unadorned  style  of  '  Aylwin ' 
to  realize  how  wide  is  the  range  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
as  a  master  of  the  fine  shades  of  literary  expression. 


Chapter    XV 

THE  GREAT  BOOK  OF  WONDER 

AND  now  begins  the  most  difficult  and  the  most  re- 
sponsible part  of  my  task — the  selection  of  one 
typical  essay  from  the  vast  number  of  essays  expressing 
more  or  less  fully  the  great  heart-thought  which  gives  life 
to  all  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  work.     I  can,  of  course,  give 
only  one,  for  already  I  see  signs  that  this  book  will  swell 
to  proportions  far  beyond  those  originally  intended  for  it. 
Naturally,  I  thought  at  first  that  I  would  select  one  of  the 
superb  articles  on  Victor  Hugo's  works,  such  for  instance 
as  '  La  Legende  des  Siecles,'  or  that  profound  one  on 
'  La  Religion  des  Religion.'     But,  after  a  while,  when  I 
had  got  the  essay  typed  and  ready  for  inclusion,  I  changed 
my  mind.     I  thought  that  one  of  those  wonderful  essays 
upon  Oriental  subjects  which  had  called  forth  writings 
like  those  of  Sir  Edwin  Arnold,  would  serve  my  purpose 
better.      Finally,  I   decided  to  choose  an  essay,  which 
when  it  appeared  was  so  full  of  profound  learning  upon 
the  great  book  of  the  world,  the  Bible,  that  it  was  attri- 
buted to  almost  every  great  specialist  upon  the  Bible  in 
Europe  and  in  America.     Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has  often 
been  urged  to  reprint  this  essay  as  a  brief  text-book  for 
scholastic  use,  but  he  has  never  done  so.     It  will  be  noted 
by  readers  of  '  Aylwin  '  that  even  so  far  back  as  the  pub- 
lication of  this  article  in  the  '  Athenaeum  ',  in  1877,  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton — to  judge  from  the  allusion  in  it  to  '  Nin- 


The  Bible  to  be  Eternal  229 

ki-gal,  the   Queen  of  Death  ' — seems  to  have  begun  to 
draw  upon  Philip  Aylwin's  '  Veiled  Queen  '  : — 

"  There  is  not,  in  the  whole  of  modern  history,  a  more 
suggestive  subject  than  that  of  the  persistent  attempts 
of  every  Western  literature  to  versify  the  Psalms  in  its 
own  idiom,  and  the  uniform  failure  of  these  attempts. 
At  the  time  that  Sternhold  was  '  bringing '  the  Psalms 
into  '  fine  Englysh  meter '  for  Henry  the  Eighth  and 
Edward  the  Sixth,  continental  rhymers  were  busy  at  the 
same  kind  of  work  for  their  own  monarchs — notably 
Clement  Marot  for  Francis  the  First.  And  it  has  been 
going  on  ever  since,  without  a  single  protest  of  any  im- 
portance having  been  entered  against  it.  This  is  aston- 
ishing, for  the  Bible,  even  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
literary  critic,  is  a  sacred  book.  Perhaps  the  time  for 
entering  such  a  protest  is  come,  and  a  literary  journal 
may  be  its  proper  medium. 

A  great  living  savant  has  characterized  the  Bible  as 
*  a  collection  of  the  rude  imaginings  of  Syria,'  '  the  worn- 
out  old  bottle  of  Judaism  into  which  the  generous  new 
wine  of  science  is  being  poured.'  The  great  savant  was 
angry  when  he  said  so.  The  '  new  wine  '  of  science  is  a 
generous  vintage,  undoubtedly,  and  deserves  all  the 
respect  it  gets  from  us ;  so  do  those  who  make  it  and 
serve  it  out ;  they  have  so  much  intelligence  ;  they  are 
so  honest  and  so  fearless.  But  whatever  may  become  of 
their  wine  in  a  few  years,  when  the  wine-dealers  shall 
have  passed  away,  when  the  savant  is  forgotten  as  any 
star-gazer  of  Chaldaea, — the  '  old  bottle  '  is  going  to  be 
older  yet, — the  Bible  is  going  to  be  eternal.  For  that 
which  decides  the  vitality  of  any  book  is  precisely  that 
which  decides  the  value  of  any  human  soul — not  the 
knowledge  it  contains,  but  simply  the  attitude  it  assumes 


230  The  Great  Book  ot  Wonder 

towards  the  universe,  unseen  as  well  as  seen.  The  atti- 
tude of  the  Bible  is  just  that  which  every  soul  must,  in 
its  highest  and  truest  moods,  always  assume — that  of  a 
wise  wonder  in  front  of  such  a  universe  as  this — that  of  a 
noble  humility  before  a  God  such  as  He  *  in  whose  great 
Hand  we  stand.'  This  is  why — like  Alexander's  mirror 
— ^like  that  most  precious  *  Cup  of  Jemshid,'  imagined 
by  the  Persians — the  Bible  reflects  to-day,  and  will  re- 
flect for  ever,  every  wave  of  human  emotion,  every 
passing  event  of  human  life — reflect  them  as  faithfully 
as  it  did  to  the  great  and  simple  people  in  whose  great 
and  simple  tongue  it  was  written.  Coming  from  the 
Vernunft  of  Man,  it  goes  straight  to  the  Vernunft. 
This  is  the  kind  of  literature  that  never  does  die  :  a  fact 
which  the  world  has  discovered  long  ago.  For  the 
Bible  is  Europe's  one  book.  And  with  regard  to  Asia, 
as  far  back  as  the  time  of  Chrysostom  it  could  have  been 
read  in  languages  Syrian,  Indian,  Persian,  Armenian, 
Ethiopic,  Scythian,  and  Samaritan  ;  now  it  can  be  read 
in  every  language,  and  in  almost  every  dialect,  under  the 
sun. 

And  the  very  quintessence  of  the  Bible  is  the  Book 
of  the  Psalms.  Therefore  the  Scottish  passion  for 
Psalm-singing  is  not  wonderful ;  the  wonder  is  that, 
liking  so  much  to  sing,  they  can  find  it  possible  to  sing  so 
badly.  It  is  not  wonderful  that  the  court  of  Francis  I 
should  yearn  to  sing  Psalms ;  the  wonderful  thing  is  that 
they  should  find  it  in  their  hearts  to  sing  Marot's  Psalms 
when  they  might  have  sung  David's — that  Her  Majesty 
the  Queen  could  sing  to  a  fashionable  jig,  '  O  Lord, 
rebuke  me  not  in  Thine  indignation  '  ;  and  that  An- 
thony, King  of  Navarre,  could  sing  to  the  air  of  a  dance 
of  Poitou,  *  Stand  up,  O  Lord,  to  revenge  my  quarrel.' 
For,  although  it  is  given  to  the  very  frogs,  says  Pascal,  to 


The  English  Litany  231 

find  music  in  their  own  croaking,  the  ears  that  can  find 
music  in  such  frogs  as  these  must  be  of  a  pecuUar  con- 
volution. 

In  Psalmody,  then,  Scottish  taste  and  French  are 
both  bad,  from  the  English  point  of  view  ;  but  then  the 
English,  having  Hopkins  in  various  incarnations,  are 
fastidious. 

When  Lord  Macaulay's  tiresome  New  Zealander  has 
done  contemplating  the  ruins  of  London  Bridge,  and 
turned  in  to  the  deserted  British  Museum  to  study  us 
through  our  books — ^what  volume  can  he  take  as  the 
representative  one — ^what  book,  above  all  others,  can  the 
ghostly  librarian  select  to  give  him  the  truest,  the  pro- 
foundest  insight  into  the  character  of  the  strange  people 
who  had  made  such  a  great  figure  in  the  earth  ?  We, 
for  our  part,  should  not  hesitate  to  give  him  the  English 
Book  of  Common  Prayer,  with  the  authorized  version 
of  the  Psalms  at  the  end,  as  representing  the  British  mind 
in  its  most  exalted  and  its  most  abject  phases.  That  in 
the  same  volume  can  be  found  side  by  side  the  beauty 
and  pathos  of  the  English  Litany,  the  grandeur  of  the 
English  version  of  the  Psalms  and  the  effusions  of  Brady 
and  Tate — masters  of  the  art  of  sinking  compared  with 
whom  Rous  is  an  inspired  bard — would  be  adequate  evi- 
dence that  the  Church  using  it  must  be  a  British  Church 
— that  British,  most  British,  must  be  the  public  toler- 
ating it. 

*  By  thine   agony    and    bloody  Sweat ;     by  thy 
Cross  and   Passion  ;    by  thy  Precious    Death  and 
Burial ;  by  thy  glorious  Resurrection  and  Ascension  ; 
and  by  the  coming  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
God  Lord,  deliver  us.' 

Among  Western  peoples  there  is  but  one  that  could  have 


232  The  Great  Book  of  Wonder 

uttered  in  such  language  this  cry,  where  pathos  and  sub- 
limity and  subtlest  music  are  so  mysteriously  blended — 
blended  so  divinely  that  the  man  who  can  utter  it, 
familiar  as  it  is,  without  an  emotion  deep  enough  to  touch 
close  upon  the  fount  of  tears  must  be  differently  consti- 
tuted from  some  of  us.  Among  Western  peoples  there 
is,  we  say,  but  one  that  could  have  done  this ;  for  as  M. 
Taine  has  well  said  : — *  More  than  any  race  in  Europe 
they  (the  British)  approach  by  the  simplicity  and  energy 
of  their  conceptions  the  old  Hebraic  spirit.  Enthusiasm 
is  their  natural  condition,  and  their  Deity  fills  them  with 
admiration  as  their  ancient  deities  inspired  them  with 
fury.'     And  now  listen  to  this  : — 

When  we,  our  wearied  limbs  to  rest, 

Sat  down  by  proud  Euphrates'  stream, 
We  wept,  with  doleful  thoughts  opprest, 
And  Zion  was  our  mournful  theme. 

Among  all  the  peoples  of  the  earth  there  is  but  one 
that  could  have  thus  degraded  the  words  :  '  By  the  rivers 
of  Babylon,  there  we  sat  down,  yea,  we  wept  when  we 
remembered  Zion.'  For,  to  achieve  such  platitude 
there  is  necessary  an  element  which  can  only  be  called 
the  '  Hopkins  element,'  an  element  which  is  quite  an 
insular  birthright  of  ours,  a  characteristic  which  came 
over  with  the  '  White  Horse,' — that  '  dull  and  greasy 
coarseness  of  taste  '  which  distinguishes  the  British  mind 
from  all  others ;  that  '  achtbrittische  Beschr^nktheit,' 
which  Heine  speaks  of  in  his  tender  way.  The  Scottish 
version  is  rough,  but  Brady  and  Tate's  inanities  are 
worse  than  Rous's  roughness. 

Such  an  anomaly  as  this  in  one  and  the  same  litera- 
ture, in  one  and  the  same  little  book,  is  unnatural ;  it 
is    monstrous  :    whence    can    it    come  ?    It  is,  indeed, 


Le  Style  c'est  La  Race  233 

singular  that  no  one  has  ever  dreamed  of  taking  the  story 
of  the  English  Prayer-book,  with  Brady  and  Tate  at  the 
end,  and  using  it  as  a  key  to  unlock  that  puzzle  of  puzzles 
which  has  set  the  Continental  critics  writing  nonsense 
about  us  for  generations  : — '  What  is  it  that  makes  the 
enormous,  the  fundamental,  difference  between  English 
literature — and  all  other  Western  literatures — Teutonic 
no  less  than  Latin  or  Slavonic  ?  '  The  simple  truth  of 
the  matter  is,  that  the  British  mind  has  always  been 
bipartite  as  now — ^has  always  been,  as  now,  half  sublime 
and  half  homely  to  very  coarseness ;  in  other  words,  it 
has  been  half  inspired  by  David  King  of  Israel,  and  half 
by  John  Hopkins,  Suffolk  schoolmaster  and  archetype  of 
prosaic  bards,  who,  in  1562,  took  such  of  the  Psalms  as 
Sternhold  had  left  unsullied  and  doggerellized  them. 
For,  as  we  have  said,  Hopkins,  in  many  and  various  in- 
carnations, has  been  singing  unctuously  in  these  islands 
ever  since  the  introduction  of  Christianity,  and  before  ; 
for  he  is  Anglo-Saxon  tastelessness,  he  is  Anglo-Saxon 
deafness  to  music  and  blindness  to  beauty.  When  St. 
Augustine  landed  here  with  David  he  found  not  only 
Odin,  but  Hopkins,  a  heathen  then,  in  possession  of  the 
soil. 

There  is,  therefore,  half  of  a  great  truth  in  what  M. 
Taine  says.  The  EngHsh  have,  besides  the  Hopkins  ele- 
ment, which  is  indigenous,  much  of  the  Hebraic  temper, 
which  is  indigenous  too  ;  but  they  have  by  nature  none 
of  the  Hebraic  style.  But,  somehow,  here  is  the  differ- 
ence between  us  and  the  Continentals ;  that,  though 
style  is  born  of  taste — though  le  style  c'est  la  race  ;  and 
though  the  Anglo-Saxon  started,  as  we  have  seen,  with 
Odin  and  Hopkins  alone ;  yet,  just  as  instinct  may  be 
sown  and  grown  by  ancestral  habit  of  many  years — 
just  as  the  pointer  puppy,  for  instance,  points,  he  knows 


234  The  Great  Book  of  Wonder 

not  why,  because  his  ancestors  were  taught  to  point 
before  him — so  may  the  Hebraic  style  be  sown  and  grown 
in  a  foreign  soil  if  the  soil  be  Anglo-Saxon,  and  if  the 
seed-time  last  for  a  thousand  years.  The  result  of  all 
this  is,  that  the  English,  notwithstanding  their  deficiency 
of  artistic  instinct  and  coarseness  of  taste,  have  the  Groat 
Style,  not  only  in  poetry,  sometimes,  but  in  prose  some- 
times when  they  write  emotively,  as  we  see  in  the  English 
Prayer-book,  in  parts  of  Raleigh's '  History  of  the  World,' 
in  Jeremy  Taylor's  sermons,  in  Hall's  '  Contemplations,' 
and  other  such  books  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

The  Great  Style  is  far  more  easily  recognized  than 
defined.  To  define  any  kind  of  style,  indeed,  we  must 
turn  to  real  life.  When  we  say  of  an  individual  in  real 
life  that  he  or  she  has  style,  we  mean  that  the  individual 
gives  us  an  impression  of  unconscious  power  or  uncon- 
scious grace,  as  distinguished  from  that  conscious  power 
or  conscious  grace  which  we  call  manner.  The  differ- 
ence is  fundamental.  It  is  the  same  in  literature  ;  style 
is  unconscious  power  or  grace — manner  is  conscious 
power  or  grace.  But  the  Great  Style,  both  in  literature 
and  in  life,  is  unconscious  power  and  unconscious  grace 
in  one. 

And,  whither  must  we  turn  in  quest  of  this,  as  the 
natural  expression  of  a  national  temper  ?  Not  to  the 
Celt,  we  think,  as  Mr.  Arnold  does.  Not,  indeed,  to 
those  whose  languages,  complex  of  syntax  and  alive  with 
self-conscious  inflections,  bespeak  the  scientific  knowing- 
ness  of  the  Aryan  mind — not,  certainly,  to  those  who, 
though  producing  -^schylus,  turned  into  Aphrodite  the 
great  Astarte  of  the  Syrians,  but  to  the  descendants  of 
Shem, — the  only  gentleman  among  all  the  sons  of  Noah  ; 
to  those  who,  yearning  always  to  look  straight  into  the  face 
of  God  and  live,  can  see  not  much  else.     The  Great 


Nin-ki— gal,  the  Queen  of  Death         235 

Style,  in  a  word,  is  Semitic.  It  would  be  a  mistake  to 
call  it  Asiatic.  For  though  two  of  its  elements,  uncon- 
sciousness and  power,  are,  no  doubt,  plentiful  enough  in 
India,  the  element  of  grace  is  lacking,  for  the  most  part. 
The  Vedic  hymns  are  both  nebulous  and  unemotive  as 
compared  with  Semitic  hymns,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
such  a  high  reach  of  ethical  writing  as  even  that  noble 
and  well-known  passage  from  Manu,  beginning,  '  Single 
is  each  man  born  into  the  world,  single  he  dies,'  etc.,  is 
quite  logical  and  self-conscious  when  compared  with  the 
ethical  parts  of  Scripture.  The  Persians  have  the  grace 
always,  the  power  often,  but  the  unconsciousness  almost 
never.  We  might  perhaps  say  that  there  were  those  in 
Egypt  once  who  came  near  to  the  great  ideal.  That  descrip- 
tion of  the  abode  of  '  Nin-ki-gal,'  the  Queen  of  Death, 
recently  deciphered  from  a  tablet  in  the  British  Museum, 
is  nearly  in  the  Great  Style,  yet  not  quite.  Conscious 
power  and  conscious  grace  are  Hellenic,  of  course.  That 
there  is  a  deal  of  unconsciousness  in  Homer  is  true  ;  but, 
put  his  elaborate  comparisons  by  the  side  of  the  fiery 
metaphors  of  the  sacred  writers,  and  how  artificial  he 
seems.  And  note  that,  afterwards,  when  he  who  ap- 
proached nearest  to  the  Great  Style  wrote  Prometheus 
and  the  Furies,  Orientalism  was  overflowing  Greece,  like 
the  waters  of  the  Nile.  It  is  to  the  Latin  races — some  of 
them — that  has  filtered  Hellenic  manner  ;  and  when- 
soever, as  in  Dante,  the  Great  Style  has  been  occasionally 
caught,  it  comes  not  from  the  Hellenic  fountain,  but 
straight  from  the  Hebrew. 

What  the  Latin  races  lack,  the  Teutonic  races  have 
— unconsciousness ;  often  unconscious  power  ;  mostly, 
however,  unconscious  brutalite.  Sublime  as  is  the 
Northern  mythology,  it  is  vulgar  too.  The  Hopkins 
element, — the  dull   and  stupid  homeliness, — the  coarse 


236  The  Great  Book  of  Wonder 

grotesque,  mingle  with  and  mar  its  finest  effects.  Over 
it  all  the  atmosphere  is  that  of  pantomime — singing 
dragons,  one-eyed  gods,  and  Wagner's  libretti.  Even 
that  great  final  conflict  between  gods  and  men  and  the 
swarming  brood  of  evil  on  the  plain  of  Wigrid,  foretold 
by  the  Volu-seeress,  when  from  Yotunland  they  come 
and  storm  the  very  gates  of  Asgard ; — even  this  fine  com- 
bat ends  in  the  grotesque  and  vulgar  picture  of  the 
Fenrir-wolf  gulping  Odin  down  like  an  oyster,  and 
digesting  the  universe  to  chaos.  But,  out  of  the  twenty- 
three  thousand  and  more  verses  into  which  the  Bible  has 
been  divided,  no  one  can  find  a  vulgar  verse  ;  for  the 
Great  Style  allows  the  stylist  to  touch  upon  any  subject 
with  no  risk  of  defilement.  This  is  why  style  in  litera- 
ture is  virtue.  Like  royalty,  the  Great  Style  *  can  do 
no  wrong.' 

Of  Teutonic  graceless  unconsciousness,  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  have  by  far  the  largest  endowment.  They 
wanted  another  element,  in  short,  not  the  Hellenic  ele- 
ment ;  for  there  never  was  a  greater  mistake  than  that 
of  supposing  that  Hellenism  can  be  engrafted  on  Teu- 
tonism  and  live  ;  as  Landor  and  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold — 
two  of  the  finest  and  most  delicate  minds  of  modern 
times — can  testify. 

But,  long  before  the  memorable  Hampton  Court 
Conference  ;  long  before  the  Bishops'  Bible  or  Cover- 
dale's  Bible  ;  long  before  even  Aldhelm's  time — Hebraism 
had  been  flowing  over  and  enriching  the  Anglo-Saxon 
mind.  From  the  time  when  Caedmon,  the  forlorn 
cow-herd,  fell  asleep  beneath  the  stars  by  the  stable- 
door,  and  was  bidden  to  sing  the  Biblical  story,  Anglo- 
Saxon  literature  grew  more  and  more  Hebraic.  Yet,  in 
a  certain  sense,  the  Hebraism  in  which  the  English  mind 
was  steeped  had  been  Hebraism  at  second  hand — that  of 


The  Great  Style  237 

the  Vulgate  mainly — till  Tyndale's  time,  or  rather  till  the 
present  Authorized  Version  of  the  Bible  appeared  in  161 1. 
'  There  is  no  book,'  says  Selden,  *  so  translated  as  the 
Bible  for  the  purpose.  If  I  translate  a  French  book  into 
English,  I  turn  it  into  English  phrase,  not  into  French- 
English.  "  II  fait  froid,"  I  say,  'tis  cold,  not  it  makes 
cold ;  but  the  Bible  is  rather  translated  into  English 
words  than  into  English  phrase.  The  Hebraisms  are 
kept,  and  the  phrase  of  that  language  is  kept.' 

And  in  great    measure    this   is    true,  no  doubt ;    yet 
literal  accuracy — importation  of  Hebraisms — ^was  not  of 
itself  enough  to  produce  a  translation  in  the  Great  Style 
— a  translation  such  as  this,  which,  as  Coleridge  says, 
makes  us  think  that  '  the  translators  themselves  were 
inspired.'     To  reproduce  the  Great  Style  of  the  original 
in  a  Western  idiom,  the  happiest  combination  of  cir- 
cumstances was  necessary.     The  temper  of  the  people 
receiving  must,  notwithstanding  all  differences  of  habi- 
tation and  civilization,  be  elementally  in  harmony  with 
that  of  the  people  giving  ;    that  is,  it  must  be  poetic 
rather    than    ratiocinative.     Society   must    not    be    too 
complex — its  tone  must  not  be  too  knowing  and  self- 
glorifying.      The  accepted  psychology  of  the  time  must 
not  be  the  psychology  of  the  scalpel — the  metaphysics 
must  not  be  the  metaphysics  of  newspaper  cynicism  ; 
above  all,  enthusiasm  and  vulgarity  must  not  be  con- 
sidered   synonymous   terms.      Briefly,  the  tone   of   the 
time  must  be  free  of  the  faintest  suspicion  of  nineteenth 
century  flavour.     That  this  is  the  kind  of  national  tem- 
per necessary  to  such  a  work  might  have  been  demon- 
strated by  an  argument  a  priori.     It  was  the  temper  of 
the  English  nation  when  the  Bible  was  translated.     That 
noble  heroism — born  of  faith  in  God  and  belief  in  the 
high  duties  of  man — which  we  have  lost  for  the  hour — 


238  The  Great  Book  of  Wonder 

was  in  the  very  atmosphere  that  hung  over  the  island. 
And  style  in  real  life,  which  now,  as  a  consequence  of 
our  loss,  does  not  exist  at  all  among  Englishmen,  and  only 
among  a  very  few  Englishwomen — shaving  given  place  in 
all  classes  to  manner — flourished  then  in  all  its  charm. 
And  in  literature  it  was  the  same  :  not  even  the  euphu- 
ism imported  from  Spain  could  really  destroy  or  even 
seriously  damage  the  then  national  sense  of  style. 

Then,  as  to  the  form  of  literature  adopted  in  the 
translation,  what  must  that  be  ?  Evidently  it  must  be 
some  kind  of  form  which  can  do  all  the  high  work  that  is 
generally  left  to  metrical  language,  and  yet  must  be  free 
from  any  soup9on  of  that  *  artifice,'  in  the  *  abandon- 
ment '  of  which,  says  an  Arabian  historian,  *  true  art 
alone  lies.'  For,  this  is  most  noteworthy,  that  of  litera- 
ture as  an  art,  the  Semites  show  but  small  conception, 
even  in  Job.  It  was  too  sacred  for  that — drama  and  epic 
in  the  Aryan  sense  were  alike  unknown. 

But  if  the  translation  must  not  be  metrical  in  the 
common  acceptation  of  that  word,  neither  must  it  be 
prose  ;  we  will  not  say  logical  prose  ;  for  all  prose,  how- 
ever high  may  be  its  flights,  however  poetic  and  emotive, 
must  always  be  logical  underneath,  must  always  be 
chained  by  a  logical  chain,  and  earth-bound  like  a  cap- 
tive [balloon  ;  just  as  poetry,  on  the  other  hand,  how- 
ever didactic  and  even  ratiocinative  it  may  become, 
must  always  be  steeped  in  emotion.  It  must  be  neither 
verse  nor  prose,  it  seems.  It  must  be  a  new  movement 
altogether.  The  musical  movement  of  the  English  Bible 
is  a  new  movement ;  let  us  call  it  *  Bible  Rhythm.'  And 
the  movement  was  devised  thus  :  Difl&culty  is  the  worker 
of  modern  miracles.  Thanks  to  Difficulty — thanks  to 
the  conflict  between  what  Selden  calls '  Hebrew  phrase 
and  English  phrase,'  the  translators  fashioned,  or  rather, 


Bible  Rhythm  239 

Difficulty  fashioned  for  them,  a  movement  which  was 
neither  one  nor  wholly  the  other — a  movement  which, 
for  music,  for  variety,  splendour,  sublimity,  and  pathos, 
is  above  all  the  effects  of  English  poetic  art,  above  all  the 
rhythms  and  all  the  rhymes  of  the  modern  world — a 
movement,  indeed,  which  is  a  form  of  art  of  itself — but  a 
form  in  which  'artifice'  is  really  'abandoned'  at  last. 
This  rhythm  it  is  to  which  we  referred  as  running 
through  the  English  Prayer-book,  and  which  governs 
every  verse  of  the  Bible,  its  highest  reaches  perhaps  being 
in  the  Psalms — this  rhythm  it  is  which  the  Hopkinses 
and  Rouses  have — improved  !  It  would  not  be  well  to 
be  too  technical  here,  yet  the  matter  is  of  the  greatest 
literary  importance  just  now,  and  it  is  necessary  to  ex- 
plain clearly  what  we  mean. 

Among  the  many  delights  which  we  get  from  the 
mere  form  of  what  is  technically  called  Poetry,  the  chief, 
perhaps,  is  expectation  and  the  fulfilment  of  expectation. 
In  rhymed  verse  this  is  obvious  :  having  familiarized 
ourselves  with  the  arrangement  of  the  poet's  rhymes,  we 
take  pleasure  in  expecting  a  recurrence  of  these  rhymes 
according  to  this  arrangement.  In  blank  verse  the  law 
of  expectation  is  less  apparent.  Yet  it  is  none  the  less 
operative.  Having  familiarized  ourselves  with  the  poet's 
rhythm,  having  found  that  iambic  foot  succeeds  iambic 
foot,  and  that  whenever  the  iambic  waves  have  begun  to 
grow  monotonous,  variations  occur — trochaic,  anapae- 
stic, dactylic — according  to  the  law  which  governs  the 
ear  of  this  individual  poet ; — we,  half  consciously,  expect 
at  certain  intervals  these  variations,  and  are  delighted 
when  our  expectations  are  fulfilled.  And  our  delight  is 
augmented  if  also  our  expectations  with  regard  to  c^suric 
effects  are  realized  in  the  same  proportions.  Having,  for 
instance,  learned,  half  unconsciously,  that  the  poet  has 


240  The  Great  Book  of  Wonder 

an  ear  for  a  particular  kind  of  pause  ;    that  he  delights, 
let  us  say,  to  throw  his  pause  after  the  third  foot  of  the 
sequence, — we  expect  that,  whatever  may  be  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  early  pauses  with  regard  to  the  initial  foot  of 
any  sequence, — there  must  be,  not  far  ahead,  that  climac- 
teric third-foot  pause  up  to  which  all  the  other  pauses 
have  been  tending,  and  upon  which  the  ear  and  the  soul 
of  the  reader  shall  be  allowed  to  rest  to  take  breath  for 
future  flights.     And  when  this  expectation  of   caesuric 
effects  is  thus  gratified,  or  gratified  in  a  more  subtle  way, 
by  an  arrangement  of  earlier  semi-pauses,  which  obviates 
the  necessity  of  the  too  frequent  recurrence  of  this  final 
third-foot  pause,  the  full  pleasure  of  poetic  effects  is  the 
result.     In  other  words,  a  large  proportion  of  the  plea- 
sure we  derive  from  poetry  is  in  the  recognition  of  law. 
The  more  obvious  and  formulated  is  the  law, — nay,  the 
more   arbitrary   and   Draconian, — the   more  pleasure  it 
gives  to  the  uncultivated  ear.     This  is  why  uneducated 
people  may  delight  in  rhyme,  and  yet  have  no  ear  at  all 
for   blank  verse  ;   this  is  why  the  savage,  who  has  not 
even  an  ear  for  rhyme,  takes  pleasure  in  such  unmistak- 
able rhythm  as  that  of  his  tom-tom.     But,  as  the  ear 
becomes  more  cultivated,  it  demands  that  these  indica- 
tions of  law  should  be  more  and  more  subtle,  till  at  last 
recognized  law  itself  may  become  a  tyranny  and  a  burden. 
He  who  will  read  Shakespeare's  plays  chronologically,  as 
far  as  that  is  practicable,  from  '  Love's  Labour's  Lost '  to 
the  '  Tempest,'  will  have  no  difiiculty  in  seeing  precisely 
what  we  mean.     In  literature,  as  in  social  life,  the  pro- 
gress is  from  lawless  freedom,  through  tyranny,  to  free- 
dom that  is  lawful.     Now  the  great  features  of  Bible 
Rhythm  are  a  recognized  music  apart  from  a  recognized 
law — '  artifice  '  so  completely  abandoned  that  we  forget 
we  are  in  the  realm  of  art — pauses  so  divinely  set  that 


The  'Moving  Music  which  is  Life'     241 

they  seem  to  be  '  wood-notes  wild,'  though  all  the  while 
they  are,  and  must  be,  governed  by  a  mysterious  law  too 
subtly  sweet  to  be  formulated ;  and  all  kind  of  beauties 
infinitely  beyond  the  triumphs  of  the  metricist,  but 
beauties  that  are  unexpected.  There  is  a  metre,  to  be 
sure,  but  it  is  that  of  the  '  moving  music  which  is  hfe  '  ;  it 
is  the  living  metre  of  the  surging  sea  within  the  soul  of 
him  who  speaks ;  it  is  the  free  effluence  of  the  emotions 
and  the  passions  which  are  passing  into  the  words.  And 
if  this  is  so  in  other  parts  of  the  Bible,  what  is  it  in  the 
Psalms,  where  '  the  flaming  steeds  of  song,'  though  really 
kept  strongly  in  hand,  seem  to  run  reinless  as  '  the  wild 
horses  of  the  wind  '  ?  " 


w.-D.  16 


Chapter  XVI 

A  HUMOURIST   UPON   HUMOUR 

THE  reaching  of  a  decision  as  to  what  article  to  select 
as  typical  of  what  I  may  call  *  The  Renascence  of 
Wonder '  essays  gave  me  so  much  trouble  that  when  I 
came  to  the  still  more  difficult  task  of  selecting  an  essay 
typical  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  criticism  dealing  with 
what  he  calls  'the  laws  of  cause  and  effect  in  literary  art ' 
it  naturally  occurred  to  me  to  write  to  him  asking  for  a 
suggestive  hint  or  two.  In  response  to  my  letter  I  got  a 
thoroughly  characteristic  reply,  in  which  his  affection  for 
a  friend  took  entire  precedence  of  his  own  work  : — 

"  My  dear  Mr.  Douglas, — The  selections  from  my 
critiques  must  really  be  left  entirely  to  yourself.  They 
are  to  illustrate  your  own  critical  judgment  upon  my 
work,  and  not  mine.  Overwhelmed  as  I  am  with 
avocations  which  I  daresay  you  little  dream  of,  for 
me  to  plunge  into  the  countless  columns  of  the 
'  Athenaeum,'  in  quest  of  articles  of  mine  which  I  have 
quite  forgotten,  would  be  an  intolerable  burden  at 
the  present  moment.  I  can  think  of  only  one  article 
which  I  should  specially  like  reproduced,  either  in  its 
entirety  or  in  part — not  on  account  of  any  merit  in 
it  which  I  can  recall,  but  because  it  was  the  means 
of  bringing  me  into  contact  with  one  of  the 
most  delightful  men  and  one    of    the   most    splendidly 


H.  D.  Traill  243 

equipped  writers  of  our  time,  whose  sudden  death 
shocked  and  grieved  me  beyond  measure.  A  few 
days  after  the  article  appeared,  the  then  editor  of 
the  '  Athenaeum,'  Mr.  MacColl,  the  dear  friend 
with  whom  I  was  associated  for  more  than  twenty 
years,  showed  me  a  letter  that  he  had  received  from 
Traill.  It  was  an  extremely  kind  letter.  Among  the 
many  generous  things  that  Traill  said  was  this — that 
it  was  just  the  kind  of  review  article  which  makes  the 
author  regret  that  he  had  not  seen  it  before  his  book 
appeared.  I  wrote  to  Traill  in  acknowledgment  of  his 
kind  words ;  but  it  was  not  until  a  good  while  after  this 
that  we  met  at  the  Incorporated  Authors'  Society  dinner. 
At  the  table  where  I  was  sitting,  and  immediately 
opposite  me,  sat  a  gentleman  whose  countenance, 
especially  when  it  was  illuminated  by  conversation 
with  his  friends,  perfectly  charmed  me.  Although 
there  was  not  the  smallest  regularity  in  his  features, 
the  expression  was  so  genial  and  so  winsome  that 
I  had  some  difficulty  in  persuading  myself  that  it 
was  not  a  beautiful  face  after  all,  and  his  smile  was  really 
quite  irresistible.  The  contrast  between  his  black  eye- 
brows and  whiskers  and  the  white  hair  upon  his  head 
gave  him  a  peculiarly  picturesque  appearance.  Another 
thing  I  noticed  was  a  boyish  kind  of  lisp,  which  somehow, 
I  could  not  say  why,  gave  to  the  man  an  added  charm. 
I  did  not  know  it  was  Traill,  but  after  the  dinner  was 
over,  when  I  was  saying  to  myself,  '  That  is  a  man  I 
should  like  to  know,'  a  friend  who  sat  next  him — I 
forget  who  it  was — brought  him  round  to  me  and  intro- 
duced him  as  '  Mr.  Traill.'  '  You  and  I  ought  to  know 
each  other,'  he  said,  '  for,  besides  having  many  tastes  in 
common,  we  live  near  each  other.'  And  then  I  found 
that  he  lived  near  the  '  Northumberland  Arms,'  between 


244  ^   Humourist  upon  Humour 

Putney  and  Barnes.  I  think  that  he  must  have  seen  how 
greatly  I  was  drawn  to  him,  for  he  called  at  The  Pines 
in  a  few  days — I  think,  indeed,  it  was  the  very  next  day 
— and  then  began  a  friendship  the  memory  of  which  gives 
me  intense  pleasure,  and  yet  pleasure  not  unmixed  with 
pain,  when  I  recall  his  comparatively  early  and  sudden 
death.  I  used  to  go  to  his  gatherings,  and  it  was  there 
that  I  first  met  several  interesting  men  that  I  had  not 
known  before.  One  of  them,  I  remember,  was  Mr. 
Sidney  Low,  then  the  editor  of  the  '  St.  James's  Gazette.' 
And  I  also  used  to  meet  there  interesting  men  whom  I 
had  known  before,  such  as  the  late  Sir  Edwin  Arnold, 
whose  *  Light  of  Asia,'  and  other  such  works,  I  had 
reviewed  in  the  *  Athenaeum.'  I  do  not  hesitate  for  a 
moment  to  say  that  Traill  was  a  man  of  genius.  Had  he 
lived  fifty  years  earlier,  such  a  writer  as  he  who  wrote 
'  The  New  Lucian,'  *  Recaptured  Rhymes,'  '  Saturday 
Songs,'  '  The  Canaanitish  Press '  and  '  Israelitish  Ques- 
tions,' '  the  Life  of  Sterne,'  and  the  brilliant  articles 
in  the  '  Saturday  Review  '  and  the '  Pall  Mall  Gazette,' 
would  have  made  an  unforgettable  mark  in  literature. 
But  there  is  no  room  for  anybody  now — no  room  for 
anybody  but  the  very,  very  few.  When  he  was  about 
starting  *  Literature, '  he  wrote  to  me,  and  a  gratifying 
letter  it  was.  He  said  that,  although  he  had  no  desire 
to  wean  me  from  the  '  Athenaeum,'  he  should  be  de- 
lighted to  receive  anything  from  me  when  I  chanced  to 
be  able  to  spare  him  something.  It  was  always  an 
aspiration  of  mine  to  send  something  to  a  paper  edited 
by  so  important  a  literary  figure — a  paper,  let  me  say, 
that  had  a  finer,  sweeter  tone  than  any  other  paper  of 
my  time — I  mean,  that  tone  of  fine  geniality  upon 
which  I  have  often  commented,  that  tone  without 
which,    '  there    can    be    no    true    criticism.'     A  certain 


Ungentlemanly  Journalism  245 

statesman  of  our  own  period,  who  had  pursued 
literature  with  success,  used  to  say  (alluding  to  a 
paper  of  a  very  different  kind,  now  dead),  that  the 
besetting  sin  of  the  literary  class  is  that  lack  of 
gentlemanlike  feeUng  one  towards  another  which  is 
to  be  seen  in  all  the  other  educated  classes.  This 
might  have  been  so  then,  but,  through  the  influence 
mainly  of  *  Literature  '  and  H.  D.  Traill,  it  is  not  so 
now.  Many  people  have  speculated  as  to  why  a  literary 
journal,  edited  by  such  a  man,  and  borne  into  the  literary 
arena  on  the  doughty  back  of  the  *  Times,'  did  not  suc- 
ceed. I  have  a  theory  of  my  own  upon  that  subject. 
Although  Traill's  hands  were  so  full  of  all  kinds  of 
journalistic  and  magazine  work  in  other  quarters,  it  is 
a  mistake  to  suppose  that  his  own  journal  was  badly 
edited.  It  was  well  edited,  and  it  had  a  splendid  staff, 
but  several  things  were  against  it.  It  confined  itself  to 
literature,  and  did  not,  as  far  as  I  remember,  give  its 
attention  to  much  else.  Its  price  was  sixpence  ;  but 
its  chief  cause  of  failure  was  what  I  may  call  its  '  per- 
sonal appearance.'  If  personal  appearance  is  an  enor- 
mously powerful  factor  at  the  beginning  of  the  great 
human  struggle  for  life,  it  is  at  the  first  quite  as  import- 
ant a  factor  in  the  life  struggle  of  a  newspaper  or  a 
magazine.  When  the  '  Saturday  Review  '  was  started, 
its  personal  appearance — something  quite  new  then — 
did  almost  as  much  for  it  as  the  brilliant  writing.  It 
was  the  same  with  the  '  Pall  Mall  Gazette  '  when  it 
started.  Carlyle  was  quite  right  in  thinking  that  there 
is  a  great  deal  in  clothes.  Now,  as  I  told  Traill  when 
we  were  talking  about  this,  '  Literature  '  in  appearance 
seemed  an  uninviting  cross  between  the  '  Law  Times  ' 
and  '  The  Lancet ' — it  seemed  difficult  to  connect 
the  unbusiness-like    genius   of    literature   with    such    a 


246  A  Humourist  upon   Humour 

business-like  looking  sheet  as  that.  Traill  laughed,  but 
ended  by  saying  that  he  believed  there  was  a  great  deal 
in  that  notion  of  mine.  Some  one  was  telling  me  the 
other  day  that  Traill,  who  died  only  about  four  years 
ago,  was  beginning  to  be  forgotten.  I  should  be  sorry 
indeed  to  think  that.  All  that  I  can  say  is  that  for  a 
book  such  as  yours  to  be  written  about  me,  and  no  book 
to  be  written  about  Traill,  presents  itself  to  my  mind 
as  being  as  grotesque  an  idea  as  any  that  Traill's  own 
delightful  whimsical  imagination  could  have  pictured." 

Of  course  I  comply  with  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  wishes, 
and  I  do  this  with  the  more  alacrity  because  there 
is  this  connection  between  the  essay  on  Sterne  and  the 
imaginative  work — the  theory  of  absolute  humour  ex- 
emplified in  Mrs.  Gudgeon  is  very  brilliantly  expounded 
in  the  article.  It  was  a  review  of  Traill's  '  Sterne,'  in  the 
'  English  Men  of  Letters,'  and  it  appeared  in  the  '  Athen- 
seum '  of  November  18,  1882.  I  will  quote  the  greater 
part  of  it  : — 

"  Contemporary  humour,  for  the  most  part,  even 
among  cultivated  writers,  is  in  temper  either  cockney  or 
Yankee,  and  both  Sterne  and  Cervantes  are  necessarily 
more  talked  about  than  studied,  while  Addison  as  a 
humorist  is  not  even  talked  about.  In  gauging  the 
quality  of  poetry — in  finding  for  any  poet  his  proper 
place  in  the  poetic  heavens — there  is  always  uncertainty 
and  difficulty.  With  humour,  however,  this  difficulty 
does  not  exist,  if  we  bear  steadily  in  mind  that  all  humour 
is  based  upon  a  simple  sense  of  incongruous  relations, 
and  that  the  quality  of  every  man's  humour  depends 
upon  the  kind  of  incongruity  which  he  recognizes  and 
finds  laughable.     If,  for  instance,  he  shows  himself  to 


'  The  Irony  of  Human  Intercourse  '     247 

have  no  sense  of  any  incongruities  deeper  than  those 
disclosed  by  the  parodist  and  the  punster,  his  relation  to 
the  real  humourist  and  the  real  wit  is  that  of  a  monkey 
to  a  man  ;  for  although  the  real  humourist  may  descend 
to  parody,  and  the  real  wit  may  descend  to  punning,  as 
Aristophanes  did,  the  pun  and  the  parody  are  charged 
with  some  deeper  and  richer  intent.  Again,  if  a  man's 
sense  of  humour,  like  that  of  the  painter  of  society,  is 
confined  to  a  sense  of  the  incongruous  relations  existing 
between  individual  eccentricity  and  the  social  conven- 
tions by  which  it  is  surrounded,  he  may  be  a  humourist 
no  doubt — according,  at  least,  to  the  general  acceptation 
of  that  word,  though  a  caricaturist  according  to  a  defini- 
tion of  humour  and  caricature  which  we  once  ventured 
upon  in  these  columns ;  but  his  humour  is  jejune,  and 
dehghtful  to  the  Philistine  only.  If,  like  that  of  Cer- 
vantes and  (in  a  lower  degree)  Fielding,  Thackeray,  and 
Dickens,  a  writer's  sense  of  the  incongruous  is  deeper 
than  this,  but  is  confined  nevertheless  to  what  Mr. 
Traill  calls  '  the  irony  of  human  intercourse,'  he  is  indeed 
a  humourist,  and  in  the  case  of  Cervantes  a  very  great 
humourist,  yet  not  necessarily  of  the  greatest ;  for  just 
as  the  greatest  poet  must  have  a  sense  of  the  highest 
and  deepest  harmonies  possible  for  the  soul  of  man  to 
apprehend,  so  the  greatest  humourist  must  have  a  sense 
of  the  highest  and  deepest  incongruities  possible.  And 
it  will  be  found  that  these  harmonies  and  these  incon- 
gruities lie  between  the  very  '  order  of  the  universe  ' 
itself  and  the  mind  of  man.  In  certain  temperaments 
the  eternal  incongruities  between  man's  mind  and  the 
scheme  of  the  universe  produce,  no  doubt,  the  pessimism 
of  Schopenhauer  and  Novalis  ;  but  to  other  tempera- 
ments— to  a  Rabelais  or  Sterne,  for  instance — the  appre- 
hension of  them  turns  the  cosmos  into  disorder,  turns 


248  A  Humourist  upon  Humour 

it  into  something  like  that  boisterous  joke  which  to  most 
temperaments  is  only  possible  under  the  excitement  of 
some  '  paradis  artificiel.'  Great  as  may  be  the  humourist 
whose  sense  of  irony  is  that  of  '  human  intercourse,'  if 
he  has  no  sense  of  this  much  deeper  irony — the  irony  of 
man's  intercourse  with  the  universal  harmony  itself — 
he  cannot  be  ranked  with  the  very  greatest.  Of  this 
irony  in  the  order  of  things  Aristophanes  and  Rabelais 
had  an  instinctive,  while  Richter  had  an  intellectual 
enjoyment.  Of  Swift  and  Carlyle  it  might  be  said  that 
they  had  not  so  much  an  enjoyment  as  a  terrible  appre- 
hension of  it.  And  if  we  should  find  that  this  quality 
exists  in  '  Tristram  Shandy,'  how  high,  then,  must  we 
not  place  Sterne  !  And  if  we  should  find  that  Cervantes 
deals  with  the  '  irony  of  human  intercourse  '  merely, 
and  that  his  humour  is,  with  all  its  profundity,  terrene, 
what  right  have  critics  to  set  Cervantes  above  Sterne  ? 
Why  is  the  sense  of  incongruity  upon  which  the  humour 
of  Cervantes  is  based  so  melancholy  ?  Because  it  only 
sees  the  farce  from  the  human  point  of  view.  The  sad 
smile  of  Cervantes  is  the  tearful  humour  of  a  soul  deeply 
conscious  of  man's  ludicrous  futility  in  his  relations  to 
his  fellow-man.  But  while  the  futilities  of '  Don  Quixote  ' 
are  tragic  because  terrene,  the  futilities  of  '  Tristram 
Shandy  '  are  comic  because  they  are  derived  from  the 
order  of  things.  It  is  the  great  humourist  Circumstance 
who  causes  Mrs.  Shandy  to  think  of  the  clock  at  the 
most  inopportune  moment,  and  who,  stooping  down 
from  above  the  constellations,  interferes  to  flatten 
Tristram's  nose.  And  if  Circumstance  proves  to  be  so 
fond  of  fun,  he  must  be  found  in  the  end  a  benevolent 
king  ;   and  hence  all  is  well. 

While,    however,  it    is,  as    we    say,  easy  in  a  general 
way  to  gauge  a  humourist  and  find  his  proper  place,  it 


'  The  Fat,   Foolish  Scullion '  249 

is  not  easy  to  bring  Sterne  under  a  classification.  In 
Sterne's  writings  every  kind  of  humour  is  to  be  found, 
from  a  style  of  farce  which  even  at  Crazy  Castle  must 
have  been  pronounced  too  wild,  up  to  humour  as  chaste 
and  urbane  as  Addison's,  and  as  profound  and  dramatic 
as  Shakespeare's.  In  loving  sympathy  with  stupidity, 
for  instance,  even  Shakespeare  is  outdone  by  Sterne  in 
his  '  fat,  fooHsh  sculHon.'  Lower  than  the  Dogberry 
type  there  is  a  type  of  humanity  made  up  of  animal 
functions  merely,  to  whom  the  mere  fact  of  being 
alive  is  the  one  great  triumph.  While  the  news  of 
Bobby's  death,  announced  by  Obadiah  in  the  kitchen, 
suggests  to  Susannah  the  various  acquisitions  to  herself 
that  must  follow  such  a  sad  calamity  to  the  '  fat,  foolish 
scullion,'  scrubbing  her  pans  on  the  floor,  it  merely  recalls 
the  great  triumphant  fact  of  her  own  life,  and  conse- 
quently to  the  wail  that  '  Bobby  is  certainly  dead  '  her 
soul  merely  answers  as  she  scrubs,  *  So  am  not  I.'  In 
four  words  that  scullion  lives  for  ever. 

Sterne's  humour,  in  short,  is  Shakespearean  and 
Rabelaisian,  Cervantic  and  Addisonian  too  ;  how,  then, 
shall  we  find  a  place  for  such  a  Proteus  ?  So  great  is 
the  plasticity  of  genius,  so  readily  at  first  does  it  answer 
to  impressions  from  without,  that  in  criticizing  its  work 
it  is  always  necessary  carefully  to  pierce  through  the 
method  and  seek  the  essential  life  by  force  of  which 
methods  can  work.  Sterne  having,  as  a  student  of 
humourous  literature,  enjoyed  the  mirthful  abandon  of 
Rabelais  no  less  than  the  pensive  irony  of  Cervantes,  it 
was  inevitable  that  his  methods  should  oscillate  between 
that  of  Rabelais  on  the  one  hand,  and  that  of  Cervantes 
on  the  other,  and  that  at  first  this  would  be  so  without 
Sterne's  natural  endowment  of  humour  being  neces- 
sarily either  Rabelaisian  or  Cervantic,   that  is   to  say, 


250  A  Humourist  upon  Humour 

either  lyric  or  dramatic,  either  the  humour  of  animal 
mirth  or  the  humour  of  philosophic  meditation.  But 
the  more  deeply  we  pierce  underneath  his  methods,  the 
more  certainly  shall  we  find  that  he  was  by  nature  the 
very  Proteus  of  humour  which  he  pretended  to  be.  And 
after  all  this  is  the  important  question  as  regards  Sterne. 
Lamb's  critical  acuteness  is  nowhere  more  clearly  seen 
than  in  that  sentence  where  he  speaks  of  his  own  '  self- 
pleasing  quaintness.'  When  any  form  of  art  departs  in 
any  way  from  symmetrical  and  normal  lines,  the  first 
question  to  ask  concerning  it  is  this  :  Is  it  self-pleasing 
or  is  it  artificial  and  histrionic  ?  That  which  pleases 
the  producer  may  perhaps  not  please  us ;  but  if  we  feel 
that  it  does  not  really  and  truly  please  the  artist  himself, 
the  artist  becomes  a  mountebank,  and  we  turn  away  in 
disgust.  In  the  humourous  portions  of  Sterne's  work 
there  is,  probably,  not  a  page,  however  nonsensical, 
which  he  did  not  write  with  gusto,  and  therefore,  bad 
as  some  of  it  may  be,  it  is  not  to  the  true  critic  an 
offence.    .     .     . 

'  Yorickism  '  is,  there  is  scarcely  need  to  say,  the  very 
opposite  of  the  humour  of  Swift.  One  recognizes  that 
the  universe  is  rich  in  things  to  laugh  at  and  to  love  ; 
the  other  recognizes  that  the  universe  is  rich  in  things  to 
laugh  at  and  to  hate.  One  recognizes  that  among  these 
absurd  things  there  is  nothing  else  so  absurd  and  (because 
so  absurd)  so  lovable  as  a  man  ;  the  other  recognizes 
that  there  is  nothing"  else  so  absurd  and  (because  so 
absurd)  so  hateful  as  a  man.  The  intellectual  process  is 
the  same  ;  the  difference  lies  in  the  temperament — the 
temperament  of  Jaques  and  the  temperament  of 
Apemantus.  And  in  regard  to  misanthropic  ridicule 
it  is  difficult  to  say  which  fate  is  more  terrible,  Swift's 
or  Carlyle's — that  of  the  man  whose  heart  must  needs 


Swift,  Sterne,  Burns,  Carlyle  251 

yearn  towards  a  race  which  his  piercing  intellect  bids 
him  hate,  or  that  of  the  man,  religious,  conscientious, 
and  good,  who  would  fain  love  his  fellows  and  cannot.  It 
is  idle  for  men  of  this  kind  to  try  to  work  in  the  vein  of 
Yorick.  It  needs  the  sweet  temper  of  him  who  at  the 
Mermaid  kept  the  table  in  a  roar,  or  of  him  who,  in 
the  words  of  the  '  cadet  of  the  house  of  Keppoch,'  was 
'  sometimes  called  Tristram  Shandy  and  sometimes 
Yorick,  a  very  great  favourite  of  the  gentlemen.'  -  Sterne, 
like  Jaques  and  Hamlet,  deals  with  '  the  irony  of  human 
intercourse,'  but  what  he  specially  recognizes  is  a  deeper 
irony  still — the  irony  of  man's  intercourse  with  himself 
and  with  nature,  the  irony  of  the  intercourse  between 
man  the  spiritual  being  and  man  the  physical  being — 
the  irony,  in  short,  of  man's  position  amid  these  natural 
conditions  of  life  and  death.  It  is  in  the  apprehension 
of  this  anomaly — a  spiritual  nature  enclosed  in  a  physical 
nature — that  Sterne's  strength  lies. 

Man,  the  '  fool  of  nature,'  prouder  than  Lucifer 
himself,  yet  '  bounded  in  a  nutshell,'  brother  to  the 
panniered  donkey,  and  held  of  no  more  account  by  the 
winds  and  rains  of  heaven  than  the  poor  little  '  beastie  ' 
whose  house  is  ruined  by  the  ploughshare — here  is,  in- 
deed, a  creature  for  Swift  and  Carlyle  and  Sterne  and 
Burns  to  marvel  at  and  to  laugh  at,  but  with  what 
different  kinds  of  laughter  !  There  is  nothing  incon- 
gruous in  the  condition  of  the  lower  animals,  because 
they  are  in  entire  harmony  with  their  natural  sur- 
roundings ;  there  is  nothing  more  absurd  in  the  existence 
and  the  natural  functions  of  a  horse  or  a  cow  than  in  the 
existence  and  the  natural  functions  of  the  grass  upon 
which  they  feed  ;  but  imagine  a  spiritual  being  so  placed, 
so  surrounded,  and  so  functioned,  and  you  get  an  ab- 
surdity compared  with  which  all  other  absurdities  are 


252  A  Humourist  upon  Humour 

non-existent,  or,  at  least,  are  fit  quarry  for  the  satirist, 
but  hardly  for  the  humourist.     That  Sterne's  donkey 
should  owe  his  existence  to  the  exercise  of  certain  natural 
functions  on  the  part  of  his  unconscious  progenitors, 
that  he  should  continue  to  hold  his  place  by  the  exercise 
on  his  own  part  of  certain  other  natural  functions,  is  in 
no  way  absurd,  and    contains    in    it    no    material    for 
humoristic    treatment.      To    render   him    absurd    you 
must  bring  him  into  relation  with  man  ;   you  must  clap 
upon  his  back  panniers  of  human  devising  or  give  him 
macaroons  kneaded  by  a  human   cook.     Then   to   the 
general  observer  he  becomes  absurd,  for  he  is  tried  by 
human  standards.     But  to  Yorick  it  is  not  so  much  the 
donkey  who  is  absurd  as  the  fantastic  creature  who  made 
the    panniers    and    cooked    the    macaroons.     All    other 
humour  is  thin  compared  with  this.     Besides,  it  never 
grows  old.     It  is  difficult,  no  doubt,  to  think  that  the 
humour  of  Cervantes  will  ever  lose  its  freshness ;    but 
the  kind  of  humour  we  have  called  Yorickism  will  be 
immortal,  for  no  advance  in  human  knowledge  can  dim 
its  lustre.     Certainly  up   to   the   present   moment   the 
anomaly  of  man's  position  upon  the  planet  is  not  lessened 
by  the  revelations  of  science  as  to  his  origin  and  develop- 
ment.    On  the  contrary,  it  is  increased,  as  we  hinted  in 
speaking  of  Thoreau.     If  man  was  a  strange  and  anoma- 
lous  '  piece  of  work  '  as  Hamlet  knew  him  under  the 
old  cosmogony,  what  a  '  piece  of  work '  does  he  appear 
now  !     He  has  the  knack  of  advancing  and  leaving  the 
woodchucks  behind,  but  how  has  he  done  it  ?   By  the 
fact  of  his  being  the  only  creature  out  of  harmony  with 
surrounding   conditions.     A   contented   conservatism   is 
the  primary  instinct  of  the  entire  animal  kingdom,  and 
if  any  species  should  change,  it  is  not  (as  Lamarck  once 
supposed)  from   any  '  inner  yearning  '  for  progress,  but 


Sterne's  Improprieties  Explained         253 

because  it  was  pushed  on  by  overmastering  circumstances. 
An  ungulate  becomes  the  giraffe,  not  because  it  is  un- 
comfortable in  its  old  condition  and  yearns  for  giraffe- 
hood,  but  because,  being  driven  from  grass  to  leaves  by 
natural  causes,  it  must  elongate  its  neck  or  starve.  But 
man  really  has  this  yearning  for  progress,  and,  because  he 
is  out  of  harmony  with  everything,  he  advances  till  at 
last  he  turns  all  the  other  creatures  into  food  or  else  into 
weight-carriers,  and  outstrips  them  so  completely  that 
he  forgets  he  is  one  of  them.  If  Uncle  Toby's  pro- 
genitors were  once  as  low  down  in  the  scale  of  life  as 
the  fly  that  buzzed  about  his  nose,  the  fly  had  certainly 
more  right  to  buzz  than  had  that  over-developed, 
incongruous  creature.  Captain  Shandy,  to  be  disturbed 
at  its  buzzing,  and  the  patronizing  speech  of  the  captain 
as  he  opens  the  window  gains  an  added  humour,  for  it 
is  the  fly  that  should  patronize  and  take  pity  upon  the 
man. 

And  while  Sterne's  abiding  sense  of  the  struggle 
between  man's  spiritual  nature  and  the  conditions  of 
his  physical  nature  accounts  for  the  metaphysical  depth 
of  some  of  his  humour,  it  greatly  accounts  for  his  in- 
decencies too.  Sterne  had  that  instinct  for  idealizing 
women,  and  the  entire  relations  between  the  sexes 
which  accompanies  the  poetic  temperament.  To  such 
natures  the  spiritual  side  of  sexual  relations  is  ever 
present ;  and  as  a  consequence  of  this  the  animal  side 
never  loses  with  them  the  atmosphere  of  wonder  with 
which  it  was  enveloped  in  their  boyish  days.  Not  that 
we  are  going  to  justify  Sterne's  indecencies.  Coleridge's 
remark  that  the  pleasure  Sterne  got  from  his  double 
entendre  was  akin  to  '  that  trembling  daring  with  which 
a  child  touches  a  hot  teapot  because  it  has  been  forbidden,' 
partly  explains,  but  it  does  not  excuse,  Sterne's  trans- 


2  54  A  Humourist  upon   Humour 

gressions  herein.  The  fact  seems  to  be  that  if  we  divide 
love  into  the  passion  of  love,  the  sentiment  of  love,  and 
the  appetite  of  love,  and  inquire  which  of  these  was 
really  known  to  Sterne,  we  shall  come  to  what  will  seem 
to  most  readers  the  paradoxical  conclusion  that  it  was 
the  sentiment  only.     There  is  abundant  proof  of  this. 

In  the   *  Letter  to  the  Earl  of  ,'  printed  by  his 

daughter,  after  dilating  upon  the  manner  in  which  the 
writing  of  the  '  Sentimental  Journey  '  has  worn  out  both 
his  spirits  and  body,  he  says  :  '  I  might  indeed  solace 
myself  with  my  wife  (who  is  come  to  France),  but,  in 
fact,  I  have  long  been  a  sentimental  being,  whatever 
your  lordship  may  think  to  the  contrary.  The  world 
has  imagined  because  I  wrote  "  Tristram  Shandy " 
that  I  was  myself  more  Shandian  than  I  really  ever 
was.'  Upon  this  passage  Mr.  Traill  has  the  pertinent 
remark :  *  The  connubial  affections  are  here,  in  all 
seriousness  and  good  faith  apparently,  opposed  to  the 
sentimental  emotions — as  the  lower  to  the  higher. 
To  indulge  the  former  is  to  be  "  Shandian,"  that  is 
to  say,  coarse  and  carnal ;  to  devote  oneself  to  the 
latter,  or,  in  other  words,  to  spend  one's  days  in 
semi-erotic  languishings  over  the  whole  female  sex 
indiscriminately,  is  to  show  spirituality  and  taste.'  Now, 
to  men  of  this  kind  there  is  not  uncommonly,  per- 
haps, a  charm  in  a  licentious  double  entendre  which 
is  quite  inscrutable  to  those  of  a  more  animal  tempera- 
ment. The  incongruity  between  the  ideal  and  the  actual 
relations  brings  poignant  distress  at  first,  and  afterwards 
a  sense  of  irresistible  absurdity.  Originally  the  fascina- 
tion of  repulsion,  it  becomes  the  fascination  of  attraction, 
and  it  is  not  at  all  fanciful  to  say  that  in  Uncle  Toby  and 
the  Widow  Wadman,  Sterne  (quite  unconsciously  to 
himself  perhaps)  realized    to  his  own  mind  those  two 


Hartley's  Theory  of  Sexual  Shame        255 

opposite  sides  of  man's  nature  whose  conflict  in  some 
form  or  another  was  ever  present  to  Sterne's  mind. 
And,  as  we  say,  it  has  a  deep  relation  to  the  kind  of  humour 
with  which  Sterne  was  so  richly  endowed.  After  one 
of  his  most  sentimental  flights,  wherein  the  spiritual  side 
of  man  is  absurdly  exaggerated,  there  comes  upon  him  a 
sudden  revulsion  (which  at  first  was  entirely  natural,  if 
even  self-conscious  afterwards).  The  incongruity  of  all 
this  sentiment  with  man's  actual  condition  as  an  animal 
strikes  him  with  irresistible  force,  and  he  says  to  man, 
'  What  right  have  you  in  that  galley  after  all — ^you  who 
came  into  the  world  in  this  extremely  unspiritual  fashion 
and  keep  in  it  by  the  agency  of  functions  which  are  if 
possible  more  unspiritual  and  more  absurd  still  ?  ' 

No  doubt  the  universal  sense  of  shame  in  connection 
with  sexual  matters,  which  Hartley  has  discussed  in  his 
subtle  but  rather  far-fetched  fashion,  arises  from  an 
acute  apprehension  of  this  great  and  eternal  incongruity 
of  man's  existence — the  conflict  of  a  spiritual  nature  and 
such  aspirations  as  man's  with  conditions  entirely  physi- 
cal. And  perhaps  the  only  truly  philosophical  definition 
of  the  word  '  indecency  '  would  be  this  :  '  A  painful  and 
shocking  contrast  of  man's  spiritual  with  his  physical 
nature.'  When  Hamlet,  with  his  finger  on  Yorick's 
skull,  declares  that  his  *  gorge  rises  at  it,'  and  asks  if 
Alexander's  skull  *  smelt  so,'  he  shocks  us  as  deeply  in  a 
serious  way  as  Sterne  in  his  allusion  to  the  winding  up 
of  the  clock  shocks  us  in  a  humourous  way,  and  to  express 
the  sensation  they  each  give  there  is,  perhaps,  no  word 
but  '  indecent.'  " 

I  have  now  cited  the  opinions  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
upon  the  metaphysical  meaning  of  humour.  In  order  to 
show  what  are  his  opinions  upon  wit,  I  think  I  shall  do  well 
to  turn  from  the  '  Athenaeum  '  articles,  and  to  quote  from 


256  A  Humourist  upon  Humour 

the  '  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  *  a  few  sentences  upon  wit, 
and  upon  the  distinction  between  comedy  and  farce. 
For  the  obvious  reason  that  the  '  Athenaeum '  articles 
are  buried  in  oblivion,  and  the  '  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  ' 
articles  are  certainly  not  so  deeply  buried,  it  is  from  the 
former  that  I  have  been  mainly  quoting ;  but  some  of  the 
most  important  parts  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  work  are 
to  be  found  in  the  '  Encyclopaedia  Britannica.'  Perhaps, 
however,  I  had  better  introduce  my  citations  by  saying 
a  few  words  about  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  connection  with 
that  work. 

The  story  of  the  way  in  which  he  came  to  write 
in  the  '  Encyclopaedia  '  has  been  often  told  by  Prof. 
Minto.  At  the  time  when  the  ninth  edition  was 
started,  he  and  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  were  living  in 
adjoining  chambers  and  were  seeing  each  other  con- 
stantly. When  Minto  was  writing  his  articles  upon 
Byron  and  Dickens,  he  told  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  that 
Baynes  would  be  delighted  to  get  work  from  him. 
But  at  that  time  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  had  got  more 
critical  work  in  hand  than  he  wanted,  and  besides 
he  had  already  a  novel  and  a  body  of  poetry  ready  for 
the  press,  and  wished  to  confine  his  energies  to  creative 
work.  Besides  this,  he  felt,  as  he  declared,  that  he 
could  not  do  the  work  fitted  for  the  compact,  business- 
like pedestrian  style  of  an  encyclopaedia.  But  when 
the  most  important  treatise  in  the  literary  department 
of  the  work — the  treatise  on  Poetry — was  wanted,  a 
peculiar  difficulty  in  selecting  the  writer  was  felt.  The 
article  in  the  previous  edition  had  been  written  by 
David  Macbeth  Moir,  famous  under  the  name  of 
'  Delta  '  as  the  author  of  '  The  Autobiography  of 
Mansie  Wauch.'  Moir's  article  was  intelligent  enough, 
but  quite  inadequate  to  such  a  work  as  the  publishers  of 


The  Treatise  on  Poetry  257 

the  *  Encyclopaedia  '  aspired  to  make.  A  history  of 
Poetry  was,  of  course,  quite  impossible  ;  it  followed  that 
the  treatise  must  be  an  essay  on  the  principles  of  poetic 
art  in  relation  to  all  other  arts,  as  exemplified  by  the 
poetry  of  the  great  literatures.  It  was  decided,  accord- 
ing to  Minto's  account,  that  there  were  but  three 
men,  that  is  to  say,  Swinburne,  Matthew  Arnold,  and 
Theodore  Watts,  who  could  produce  this  special  kind 
of  work,  the  other  critics  being  entirely  given  up  to 
the  historic  method  of  criticism.  The  choice  fell  upon 
Watts,  and  Baynes  went  to  London  for  the  purpose 
of  inviting  him  to  do  the  work,  and  explaining  exactly 
what  was  wanted. 

I  think  all  will  agree  with  me  that  there  never  was  a 
happier  choice.  Mr.  Arthur  Symons,  in  an  article  on 
'  The  Coming  of  Love '  in  the  *  Saturday  Review ' 
has  written  very  luminously  upon  this  subject.  He  tells 
us  that,  wide  as  is  the  sweep  of  the  treatise,  it  is  but 
a  brilliant  fragment,  owing  to  the  treatise  having  vastly 
overflowed  the  space  that  could  be  given  to  it.  The 
truth  is  that  the  essay  is  but  the  introduction  to  an 
exhaustive  discussion  of  what  the  writer  believes  to  be 
the  most  important  event  in  the  history  of  all  poetry 
— the  event  discussed  under  the  name  of  '  The  Renas- 
cence of  Wonder.'  The  introduction  to  the  third 
volume  of  the  new  edition  of  Chambers's  '  Cyclopaedia  of 
English  Literature  '  is  but  a  bare  outline  of  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  writings  upon  this  subject.  It  has  been  said 
over  and  over  again  that  since  the  best  critical  work 
of  Coleridge  there  has  been  nothing  in  our  literature 
to  equal  this  treatise  on  Poetry.  It  has  been  ex- 
haustively discussed  in  England,  America,  and  on  the 
Continent,  especially  in  Germany,  where  it  has  been 
compared  to  the  critical  system  of  Goethe.     Those  who 

w.-D.  17 


258  A  Humourist  upon  Humour 

have  not  read  it  will  be  surprised  to  hear  that  it  is  not 
confined  to  the  formulating  of  generalizations  on  poetic 
art ;  it  is  full  of  eloquent  passages  on  human  life  and 
human  conduct. 

It  was  in  an  article  upon  a  Restoration  comic  dramatist, 
Vanbrugh,  that  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  first  formulated  his 
famous  distinction  between  comedy  and  farce  : — 

"  In  order  to  find  and  fix  Vanbrugh's  place  among 
English  comic  dramatists,  an  examination  of  the  very- 
basis  of  the  comedy  of  repartee  inaugurated  by  Etheredge 
would  be  necessary,  and,  of  course,  such  an  examination 
would  be  impossible  here.  It  is  chiefly  as  a  humourist, 
however,  that  he  demands  attention. 
'  Given  the  humorous  temperament  —  the  tempera- 
ment which  impels  a  man  to  get  his  enjoyment  by 
watching  the  harlequinade  of  life,  and  contrasting  it 
with  his  own  ideal  standard  of  good  sense,  which  the 
harlequinade  seems  to  him  to  mock  and  challenge — given 
this  temperament,  then  the  quality  of  its  humourous 
growth  depends  of  course  on  the  quality  of  the  intel- 
lectual forces  by  means  of  which  the  temperament  gains 
expression.  Hence  it  is  very  likely  that  in  original 
endowment  of  humour,  as  distinguished  from  wit, 
Vanbrugh  was  superior  to  Congreve.  And  this  is  saying 
a  great  deal  :  for,  while  Congreve's  wit  has  always  been 
made  much  of,  it  has,  since  Macaulay's  time,  been  the 
fashion  among  critics  to  do  less  than  justice  to  his  humour 
— a  humour  which,  in  such  scenes  as  that  in  '  Love  for 
Love,'  where  Sir  Sampson  Legend  discourses  upon  the 
human  appetites  and  functions,  moves  beyond  the 
humour  of  convention  and  passes  into  natural  humour. 
It  is,  however,  in  spontaneity,  in  a  kind  of  lawless  merri- 
ment, almost  Aristophanic  in  its  verve,  that  Vanbrugh's 


Comedy  and  Farce  259 

humour  seems  so  deep  and  so  fine,  seems  indeed  to 
spring  from  a  fountain  deeper  and  finer  and  rarer  than 
Congreve's.  A  comedy  of  wit,  like  every  other  drama, 
is  a  story  told  by  action  and  dialogue,  but  to  tell  a  story 
lucidly  and  rapidly  by  means  of  repartee  is  exceedingly 
difficult,  not  but  that  it  is  easy  enough  to  produce 
repartee.  But  in  comic  dialogue  the  difficulty  is  to 
move  rapidly  and  yet  keep  up  the  brilliant  ball-throwing 
demanded  in  this  form  ;  and  without  lucidity  and  rapidity 
no  drama,  whether  of  repartee  or  of  character,  can  live. 
Etheredge,  the  father  of  the  comedy  of  repartee,  has  at 
length  had  justice  done  to  him  by  Mr.  Gosse.  Not 
only  could  Etheredge  tell  a  story  by  means  of  repartee 
alone  :  he  could  produce  a  tableau  too  ;  so  could  Con- 
greve,  and  so  also  could  Vanbrugh ;  but  often — far  too 
often — Vanbrugh's  tableau  is  reached,  not  by  fair  means, 
as  in  the  tableau  of  Congreve,  but  by  a  surrendering  of 
probability,  by  a  sacrifice  of  artistic  fusion,  by  an  in- 
artistic mingling  of  comedy  and  farce,  such  as  Congreve 
never  indulges  in.  Jeremy  Collier  was  perfectly  right, 
therefore,  in  his  strictures  upon  the  farcical  improb- 
abilities of  the  '  Relapse.'  So  farcical  indeed  are  the 
tableaux  in  that  play  that  the  broader  portions  of  it 
were  (as  Mr.  Swinburne  discovered)  adapted  by  Voltaire 
and  acted  at  Sceaux  as  a  farce.  Had  we  space  here  to 
contrast  the  '  Relapse  '  with  the  *  Way  of  the  World,* 
we  should  very  likely  come  upon  a  distinction  between 
comedy  and  farce  such  as  has  never  yet  been  drawn. 
We  should  find  that  farce  is  not  comedy  with  a  broadened 
grin — ^Thalia  with  her  girdle  loose  and  run  wild — as  the 
critics  seem  to  assume.  We  should  find  that  the  differ- 
ence between  the  two  is  not  one  of  degree  at  all,  but 
rather  one  of  kind,  and  that  mere  breadth  of  fun  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  question.     No  doubt  the  fun  of 


26o  A  Humourist  upon  Humour 

comedy  may  be  as  broad  as  that  of  farce,  as  is  shown 
indeed  by  the  celebrated  Dogberry  scenes  in  *  Much 
Ado  about  Nothing  '  and  by  the  scene  in  *  Love  for 
Love  '  between  Sir  Sampson  Legend  and  his  son,  alluded 
to  above  ;  but  here,  as  in  every  other  department  of  art, 
all  depends  upon  the  quality  of  the  imaginative  belief 
that  the  artist  seeks  to  arrest  and  secure.  Of  comedy 
the  breath  of  life  is  dramatic  illusion.  Of  farce  the 
breath  of  life  is  mock  illusion.  Comedy,  whether  broad 
or  genteel,  pretends  that  its  mimicry  is  real.  Farce, 
whether  broad  or  genteel,  makes  no  such  pretence,  but, 
by  a  thousand  tricks,  which  it  keeps  up  between  itself 
and  the  audience,  says,  *  My  acting  is  all  sham,  and  you 
know  it.'  Now,  while  Vanbrugh  was  apt  too  often  to 
forget  this  the  fundamental  difference  between  comedy 
and  farce,  Congreve  never  forgot  it,  Wycherly  rarely. 
Not  that  there  should  be  in  any  literary  form  any  arbi- 
trary laws.  There  is  no  arbitrary  law  declaring  that 
comedy  shall  not  be  mingled  with  farce,  and  yet  the  fact 
is  that  in  vital  drama  they  cannot  be  so  mingled.  The 
very  laws  of  their  existence  are  in  conflict  with  each 
other,  so  much  so  that  where  one  lives  the  other  must 
die,  as  we  see  in  the  drama  of  our  own  day.  The  fact 
seems  to  be  that  probability  of  incident,  logical  sequence 
of  cause  and  effect,  are  as  necessary  to  comedy  as  they 
are  to  tragedy,  while  farce  would  stifle  in  such  an  air. 
Rather,  it  would  be  poisoned  by  it,  just  as  comedy  is 
poisoned  by  what  farce  flourishes  on ;  that  is  to  say, 
inconsequence  of  reasoning — topsy-turvy  logic.  Born  in 
the  fairy  country  of  topsy-turvy,  the  logic  of  farce  would 
be  illogical  if  it  were  not  upside-down.  So  with  coinci- 
dence, with  improbable  accumulation  of  convenient 
events — farce  can  no  more  exist  without  these  than 
comedy  can   exist   with   them.     Hence   we   affirm   that 


Jeremy  Collier,   Leigh    Hunt  and  Hazlitt    261 

Jeremy  Collier's  strictures  on  the  farcical  adulterations 
of  the  *  Relapse  '  pierce  more  deeply  into  Vanbrugh's 
art  than  do  the  criticisms  of  Leigh  Hunt  and  Hazlitt. 
In  other  words,  perhaps  the  same  lack  of  fusion  which 
mars  Vanbrugh's  architectural  ideas  mars  also  his 
comedy." 

Without  for  a  moment  wishing  to  institute  compari- 
sons between  the  merit  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  literary 
articles  and  the  merit  of  other  literary  articles  by  other 
contemporary  writers,  I  may  at  least  say  that  between 
his  articles  and  theirs  the  difference  is  not  one  of  degree, 
it  is  one  of  kind.  Theirs  are  compact,  business-like  com- 
pressions of  facts  admirably  fitted  for  an  Encyclopaedia. 
No  attempt  is  made  to  formulate  generalizations  upon 
the  principles  of  literary  art,  and  this  must  be  said  in 
their  praise — they  are  faultless  as  articles  in  a  book  of 
reference.  But  no  student  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  work 
who  turns  over  the  pages  of  an  article  in  the '  Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica  '  can  fail  after  reading  a  few  sentences  to 
recognize  the  author.  Generalizations,  hints  of  daring 
theories,  novel  and  startling  speculations,  graze  each 
other's  heels , until  one  is  dazzled  by  the  display  of  intellec- 
tual brilliance.  That  his  essays  are  out  of  place  in  an 
Encyclopaedia  may  be  true,  but  they  seem  to  lighten  and 
alleviate  it  and  to  shed  his  fascinating  idiosyncrasy  upon 
their  coldly  impersonal  environment. 


Chapter  XVII 

*THE   LIFE   POETIC 

I  HAVE  been  allowed  to  enrich  this  volume  with  photo- 
graphs of  *  The  Pines '  and  of  some  of  the  exquisite 
works  of  art  therein.  But  it  is  unfortunate  for  me  that 
I  am  not  allowed  to  touch  upon  what  are  the  most  im- 
portant relations  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  life — important 
though  so  many  of  them  are.  I  mean  his  intimacy  with 
the  poet  whose  name  is  now  beyond  doubt  far  above  any 
other  name  in  the  contemporary  world  of  letters.  I  do 
not  sympathize  with  the  hyper-sensitiveness  of  eminent 
men  with  regard  to  privacy.  The  inner  chamber  of  what 
Rossetti  calls  the  '  House  of  Life  '  should  be  kept  sacred. 
But  Rossetti's  own  case  shows  how  impossible  it  is  in 
these  days  to  keep  those  recesses  inviolable.  The  fierce 
light  that  beats  upon  men  of  genius  grows  fiercer  and 
fiercer  every  day,  and  it  cannot  be  quenched.  This  was 
one  of  my  arguments  when  I  first  answered  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  own  objection  to  the  appearance  of  this  mono- 
graph. The  times  have  changed  since  he  was  a  young 
man.  Then  publicity  was  shunned  like  a  plague  by 
poets  and  by  painters.  If  such  men  wish  the  light  to  be 
true  as  well  as  fierce,  they  must  allow  their  friends  to 
illuminate  their  '  House  of  Life  '  by  the  lamp  of  truth. 
If  Rossetti  during  his  lifetime  had  allowed  one  of  his 
friends  who  knew  the  secrets  of  his  '  House  of  Life  '  to 
write    about    him,  we  might    have    been  spared    those 

303 


V; 


•\ 


'?>    A 


'-a-'fe   <■?' 


.  - '    '"'^'?>::«*''^^'|,*-'s^^ 


1i! 


ihe  I  inijs . 
.Ritne/^fiili  . 


'  The  Pines  ' 
(From  a  Drawing  by  Mr.  Herbert  Railton) 


Photo.  Poole,  Putney 


Canards  about  Eminent  Men  263 

canards  about  him  and  the  wife  he  loved  which  were 
rife  shortly  after  his  death.  Byron's  reluctance  to 
take  payment  for  his  poetry  was  not  a  more  belated 
relic  of  an  old  quixotism  than  is  this  dying  passion 
for  privacy.  PubHcity  may  be  an  evil,  but  it  is  an  in- 
evitable evil,  and  great  men  must  not  let  the  wasps  and 
the  gadflies  monopolize  its  uses.  It  may  be  a  remini- 
scence of  an  older  and  a  nobler  social  temper,  the  temper 
under  the  influence  of  which  Rossetti  in  1870  said  that 
he  felt  abashed  because  a  paragraph  had  appeared  in  the 
*  Athenaeum '  announcing  the  fact  that  a  book  from  him 
was  forthcoming.  But  that  temper  has  gone  by  for  ever. 
We  live  now  in  very  different  times.  Scores  upon  scores 
of  unauthorized  and  absolutely  false  paragraphs  about 
eminent  men  are  published,  especially  about  these  two 
friends  who  have  lived  their  poetic  life  together  for  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  century.  Only  the  other  day  I  saw 
in  a  newspaper  an  offensive  descriptive  caricature  of 
Mr.  Swinburne,  of  his  dress,  etc.  It  is  interesting  to 
recall  the  fact  that  mendacious  journalism  was  the  cause 
of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  very  first  contribution  to  the 
'  Athenaeum,'  before  he  wrote  any  reviews  at  all.  At 
that  time  the  offenders  seem  to  have  been  chiefly  Ameri- 
cans. The  article  was  not  a  review,  but  a  letter  signed 
'  Z,'  entitled  '  The  Art  of  Interviewing,'  and  it  appeared 
in  the  'Athenaeum,'  of  March  11,  1876.  As  it  shows 
the  great  Swinburne  myth  in  the  making,  I  will  repro- 
duce this  merry  little  skit  : — 

"  '  Alas  !  there  is  none  of  us  without  his  skeleton- 
closet,'  said  a  great  writer  to  one  who  was  congratulating 
him  upon  having  reached  the  goal  for  which  he  had, 
from  the  first,  set  out.  '  My  skeleton  bears  the  dreadful 
name  of  "  American  Interviewer."     Pity  me  ! '     *  Is  he 


264  'The  Life  Poetic' 

an  American  with  a  diary  in  his  pocket  ?  '  was  the  terrified 
question  always  put  by  another  man  of  genius,  whenever 
you  proposed  introducing  a  stranger  to  him.  But  this 
was  in  those  ingenuous  Parker-Willisian  days  when  the 

*  Interviewer  '  merely  invented  the  dialogue — not  the 
entire  dramatic  action — not  the  interview  itself. 
Primitive  times !  since  when  the  *  Interviewer '  has 
developed  indeed !  His  dramatic  inspiration  now  is 
trammelled  by  none  of  those  foolish  and  arbitrary  con- 
ditions which — whether  his  scene  of  action  was  at  the 

*  Blue  Posts '  with  Thackeray,  or  in  the  North  with 
Scottish  lords — vexed  and  bounded  the  noble  soul  of 
the  great  patriarch  of  the  tribe.  Uncribbed,  uncabined, 
unconfined,  the  '  Interviewer  '  now  invents,  not  merely 
the  dialogue,  but  the  *  situation,'  the  place,  the  time — 
the  interview  itself.  Every  dramatist  has  his  favourite 
character — Sophocles  had  his ;  Shakspeare  had  his ; 
Schiller  had  his ;  the  '  Interviewer '  has  his.  Mr. 
Swinburne  has,  for  the  last  two  or  three  years,  been — for 
some  reason  which  it  might  not  be  difficult  to  explain — 
the  '  Interviewer's '  special  favourite.  Moreover,  the 
accounts  of  the  interviews  with  him  are  always  livelier 
than  any  others,  inasmuch  as  they  are  accompanied  by 
brilliant  fancy-sketches  of  his  personal  appearance — 
sketches  which,  if  they  should  not  gratify  him  exactly, 
would  at  least  astonish  him  ;  and  it  is  surely  something 
to  be  even  astonished  in  these  days.  Some  time  ago, 
for  instance,  an  American  lady  journalist,  connected 
with  a  '  Western  newspaper,'  made  her  appearance  in 
London,  and  expressed  many  *  great  desires,'  the  greatest 
of  all  her  *  desires '  being  to  know  the  author  of  *  Atalanta,' 
or,  if  she  could  not  know  him,  at  least  to  '  see  him.' 

The    Fates,   however,   were    not    kind    to   the   lady. 
The  author  of  *  Atalanta  '  had  quitted  London.     She  did 


Pretended  Interviewing  265 

not  see  him,  therefore — not  with  her  bodily  eyes  could 
she  see  him.  Yet  this  did  not  at  all  prevent  her  from 
'  interviewing  '  him.  Why  should  it  ?  The  *  soul  hath 
eyes  and  ears '  as  well  as  the  body  —  especially  if  the 
soul  is  an  American  soul,  with  a  mission  to  *  interview.* 
There  soon  appeared  in  the  lady's  Western  newspaper  a 
graphic  account  of  one  of  the  most  interesting  interviews 
with  this  poet  that  has  ever  yet  been  recorded.  Mr. 
Swinburne — though  at  the  time  in  Scotland — *  called  * 
upon  the  lady  at  her  rooms  in  London ;  but,  notwith- 
standing this  unexampled  feat  of  courtesy,  he  seems  to 
have  found  no  favour  in  the  lady's  eyes.  She  *  misliked 
him  for  his  complexion.'  Evidently  it  was  nothing  but 
good-breeding  that  prevented  her  from  telling  the  bard, 
on  the  spot,  that  he  was  physically  an  unlovely  bard. 
His  manners,  too,  were  but  so-so  ;  and  the  Western 
lady  was  shocked  and  disgusted,  as  well  she  might  be. 
In  the  midst  of  his  conversation,  for  example,  he  called 
out  frantically  for  *  pen  and  ink.'  He  had  become 
suddenly  and  painfully  *  afflated.'  When  furnished 
with  pen  and  ink  he  began  furiously  writing  a  poem, 
beating  the  table  with  his  left  hand  and  stamping  the 
floor  with  both  feet  as  he  did  so.  Then,  without  saying 
a  word,  he  put  on  his  hat  and  rushed  from  the  room  like 
a  madman  !  This  account  was  copied  into  other  news- 
papers and  into  the  magazines.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  piece  of 
genuine  history  now,  and  will  form  valuable  material  for 
some  future  biographer  of  the  poet.  The  stubborn 
shapelessness  of  facts  has  always  distressed  the  artistically- 
minded  historian.  But  let  the  American  *  Interviewer  ' 
go  on  developing  thus,  and  we  may  look  for  History's 
becoming  far  more  artistic  and  symmetrical  in  future. 
The  above  is  but  one  out  of  many  instances  of  the  art 
of  interviewing." 


266  'The  Life  Poetic* 

It  is  all  very  well  to  say  that  irresponsible  statements 
of  this  kind  are  not  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word  believed 
by  readers ;  they  create  an  atmosphere  of  false  mist 
which  destroys  altogether  the  picture  of  the  poet's  life 
which  one  would  like  to  preserve.  And  I  really  think  that 
it  would  have  been  better  if  I  or  some  one  else  among 
the  friends  of  the  poets  had  been  allowed  to  write  more 
freely  about  the  beautiful  and  intellectual  life  at  'The 
Pines.'  But  I  am  forbidden  to  do  this,  as  the  following 
passage  in  a  letter  which  I  have  received  from  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  will  show  : 

"  I  cannot  have  anything  about  our  life  at  *The 
Pines '  put  into  print,  but  I  will  grant  you  permission 
to  give  a  few  reproductions  of  the  interesting  works 
of  art  here,  for  many  of  them  may  have  a  legitimate  in- 
terest for  the  public  on  account  of  their  historic 
value,  as  having  come  to  me  from  the  magician  of  art, 
Rossetti.  And  I  assure  you  that  this  is  a  concession 
which  I  have  denied  to  very  many  applicants,  both 
among  friends  and  others." 

Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  allusion  to  the  Rossetti  me- 
mentoes requires  a  word  of  explanation<  Rossetti,  it 
seems,  was  very  fond  of  surprising  his  friends  by  un- 
expected tokens  of  generosity.  I  have  heard  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  say  that  during  the  week  when  he  was 
moving  into  '  The  Pines,'  he  spent  as  usual  Wednesday 
night  at  i6  Cheyne  Walk,  and  he  and  Rossetti  sat 
talking  into  the  small  hours.  Next  morning  after 
breakfast  he  strolled  across  to  Whistler's  house  to 
have  a  talk  with  the  ever-interesting  painter,  and  this 
resulted  in  his  getting  home  two  hours  later  than  usual. 
On  reaching  the  new  house  he  saw  a  waggon  standing  in 


The  Generous  Rossetti  Again  267 

front  of  it.  He  did  not  understand  this,  for  the  furniture 
from  the  previous  residence  had  been  all  removed.  He 
went  up  to  the  waggon,  and  was  surprised  to  find  it  full  of 
furniture  of  a  choice  kind.  But  there  was  no  need  for  him 
to  give  much  time  to  an  examination  of  the  furniture, 
for  he  found  he  was  familiar  with  every  piece  of  it.  It 
had  come  straight  from  Rossetti's  house,  having  been 
secretly  packed  and  sent  off  by  Dunn  on  the  previous  day. 
Some  of  the  choicest  things  at  *  The  Pines '  came  in  this 
way.  Not  a  word  had  Rossetti  said  about  this  generous 
little  trick  on  the  night  before.  The  superb  Chinese  cabi- 
net, a  photograph  of  which  appears  in  this  book,  belonged 
to  Rossetti.  It  seems  that  on  a  certain  occasion  Frederick 
Sandys,  or  some  one  else,  told  Rossetti  that  the  clever 
but  ne'er-do-well  artist,  George  Chapman,  had  bought 
of  a  sea-captain,  trading  in  Chinese  waters,  a  wonderful 
piece  of  lacquer  work  of  the  finest  period — before  the 
Manchu  pig-tail  time.  The  captain  had  bought  it  of 
a  Frenchman  who  had  aided  in  looting  the  Imperial 
Palace.  Rossetti,  of  course,  could  not  rest  until  he  had 
seen  it,  and  when  he  had  seen  it,  he  could  not  rest  until 
he  had  bought  it  of  Chapman  ;  and  it  was  taken  across 
to  16  Cheyne  Walk,  where  it  was  greatly  admired. 
The  captain  had  barbarously  mutilated  it  at  the  top 
in  order  to  make  it  fit  in  his  cabin,  and  it  remained 
in  that  condition  for  some  years.  Afterwards  Rossetti 
gave  it  to  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  who  got  it  restored 
and  made  up  by  the  wonderful  amateur  carver,  the  late 
Mr.  T.  Keynes,  who  did  the  carving  on  the  painted 
cabinet  also  photographed  for  this  book.  There  is  a 
long  and  interesting  story  in  connection  with  this  piece 
of  Chinese  lacquer,  but  I  have  no  room  to  tell  it  here. 

All  I  am  allowed  to  say  about  the  relations  between 


268  'The   Life  Poetic* 

Mr.  Watts-Dunton  and  Mr.  Swinburne  is  that  the 
friendship  began  in  1872,  that  it  soon  developed  into  the 
closest  intimacy,  not  only  with  the  poet  himself,  but 
with  all  his  family.  In  1879  the  two  friends  became 
house-mates  at  'The  Pines,'  Putney  Hill,  and  since  then 
they  have  never  been  separated,  for  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's 
visits  to  the  Continent,  notably  those  with  the  late 
Dr.  Hake  recorded  in  *  The  New  Day,'  took  place  just 
before  this  time.  The  two  poets  thenceforth  lived 
together,  worked  together,  saw  their  common  friends 
together,  and  travelled  together.  In  1882,  after  the 
death  of  Rossetti  they  went  to  the  Channel  Islands, 
staying  at  St.  Peter's  Port,  Guernsey,  for  some  little 
time,  and  then  at  Petit  Bot  Bay.  Their  swims  in 
this  beautiful  bay  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  commemorated 
in  two  of  the  opening  sonnets  of  '  The  Coming  of 
Love  '  : — 


NATURE'S  FOUNTAIN  OF  YOUTH 

(a  morning  swim  off  guernsey  with  a  friend) 

As  if  the  Spring's  fresh  groves  should  change  and  shake 
To  dark  green  woods  of  Orient  terebinth, 
Then  break  to  bloom  of  England's  hyacinth, 
So  'neath  us  change  the  waves,  rising  to  take 
Each  kiss  of  colour  from  each  cloud  and  flake 
Round  many  a  rocky  hall  and  labyrinth, 
Where  sea-wrought  column,  arch,  and  granite  plinth, 
Show  how  the  sea's  fine  rage  dares  make  and  break. 
Young  with  the  youth  the  sea's  embrace  can  lend. 
Our  glowing  limbs,  with  sun  and  brine  empearled. 
Seem  born  anew,  and  in  your  eyes,  dear  friend. 
Rare  pictures  shine,  like  fairy  flags  unfurled. 
Of  child-land,  where  the  roofs  of  rainbows  bend 
Over  the  magic  wonders  of  the  world, 


'«-;.  ^-^--^ 


Summer  at  "The  Pines.'     I 


Photo.  Poole,  Putney 


Grant  Allen  269 

THE  LANGUAGE  OF  NATURE'S  FRAGRANCY 

(the  tiring-room  in  the  rocks) 

These  are  the  '  Coloured  Caves '  the  sea-maid  built ; 

Her  walls  are  stained  beyond  that  lonely  fern, 

For  she  must  fly  at  every  tide's  return, 

And  all  her  sea-tints  round  the  walls  are  spilt. 

Outside  behold  the  bay,  each  headland  gilt 

With  morning's  gold ;  far  off  the  foam-wreaths  burn 

Like  fiery  snakes,  while  here  the  sweet  waves  yearn 

Up  sand  more  soft  than  Avon's  sacred  silt. 

And  smell  the  sea  !    no  breath  of  wood  or  field. 

From  lips  of  may  or  rose  or  eglantine, 

Comes  with  the  language  of  a  breath  benign, 

Shuts  the  dark  room  where  glimmers  Fate  revealed, 

Calms  the  vext  spirit,  balms  a  sorrow  unhealed, 

Like  scent  of  sea-weed  rich  of  morn  and  brine. 

The  two  friends  afterwards  went  to  Sark.  A  curious 
incident  occurred  during  their  stay  in  the  island.  The 
two  poet-swimmers  received  a  bravado  challenge  from 
*  Orion  '  Home,  who  was  also  a  famous  swimmer,  to 
swim  with  him  round  the  whole  island  of  Sark !  I  need 
hardly  say  that  the  absurd  challenge  was  not  accepted. 

During  the  cruise  Mr.  Swinburne  conceived  and  after- 
wards wrote  some  glorious  poetry.  In  the  same  year  the 
two  friends  went  to  Paris,  as  I  have  already  mentioned, 
to  assist  at  the  Jubilee  of  '  Le  Roi  s'Amuse.'  Since  then 
their  love  of  the  English  coasts  and  the  waters  which 
wash  them,  seems  to  have  kept  them  in  England.  For 
two  consecutive  years  they  went  to  Sidestrand,  on  the 
Norfolk  coast,  for  bathing.  It  was  there  that  Mr. 
Swinburne  wrote  some  of  his  East  Anglian  poems,  and  it 
was  there  that  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  conceived  the  East 
coast  parts  of  '  Aylwin.'  It  was  during  one  of  these 
visits  that  Mr.  Swinburne  first  made  the  acquaintance 
of  Grant  Allen,  who  had  long  been  an  intimate  friend  of 


270  'The  Life  Poetic* 

Mr.  Watts-Dunton's.  The  two,  indeed,  were  drawn 
together  by  the  fact  that  they  both  enjoyed  science  as 
much  as  they  enjoyed  literature.  It  was  a  very  inter- 
esting meeting,  as  Grant  Allen  had  long  been  one  of 
Swinburne's  most  ardent  admirers,  and  his  social  charm, 
his  intellectual  sweep  and  brilliance,  made  a  great  im- 
pression on  the  poet.  Since  then  their  visits  to  the  sea 
have  been  confined  to  parts  of  the  English  Channel,  such 
as  Eastbourne,  where  they  were  near  neighbours  of 
Rossetti's  friends.  Lord  and  Lady  Mount  Temple,  be- 
tween whom  and  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  there  had  been  an 
affectionate  intimacy  for  many  years — but  more  notably 
Lancing,  whither  they  went  for  three  consecutive  years. 
For  several  years  they  stayed  during  their  holiday  with 
Lady    Mary   Gordon,  an  aunt  of  Mr.  Swinburne's,  at 

*  The  Orchard,'  Niton  Bay,  Isle  of  Wight.  During 
the  ho^  summer  of  1904  they  were  lucky  enough  to  escape 
to  Cromer,  where  the  temperature  was  something  like 
twenty  degrees  lower  than  that  of  London.  A  curious 
incident  occurred  during  this  visit  to  Cromer.  One  day 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  took  a  walk  with  another  friend  to 

*  Poppy-land,'  where  he  and  Mr.Swinburne  had  previously 
stayed,  in  order  to  see  there  again  the  landslips  which  he 
has  so  vividly  described  in  '  Aylwin.'  While  they  were 
walking  from  *  Poppyland  '  to  the  old  ruined  churchyard 
called  *  The  Garden  of  Sleep,'  they  sat  down  for  some 
time  in  the  shade  of  an  empty  hut  near  the  cliff.  Coming 
back  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  said  that  the  cliff  there  was  very 
dangerous,  and  ought  to  be  fenced  off,  as  the  fatal  land- 
springs  were  beginning  to  show  their  work.  Two  or 
three  weeks  after  this  a  portion  of  the  cliff  at  that  point, 
weighing  many  thousands  of  tons,  fell  into  the  sea,  and 
the  hut  with  it. 

A  friendship  so  affectionate  and  so  long  as  the  friend- 


A  Memorable  Poetic  Year  271 

ship  between  these  two  poets  is  perhaps  without  a  parallel 
in  literature.  It  has  been  frequently  and  beautifully 
commemorated.  When  Mr.  Swinburne's  noble  poem, 
*  By  the  North  Sea,'  was  published,  it  was  prefaced  by 
this  sonnet  : — 

TO  WALTER  THEODORE  WATTS 

'  WE   ARE   WHAT    SUNS   AND    WINDS    AND    WATERS    MAKE    US.' 

Landor. 

Sea,  wind,  and  sun,  with  light  and  sound  and  breath 

The  spirit  of  man  fulfilling — these  create 

That  joy  wherewith  man's  life  grown  passionate 
Gains  heart  to  hear  and  sense  to  read  and  faith 
To  know  the  secret  word  our  Mother  saith 

In  silence,  and  to  see,  though  doubt  wax  great, 

Death  as  the  shadow  cast  by  life  on  fate. 
Passing,  whose  shade  we  call  the  shadow  of  death. 

Brother,  to  whom  our  Mother,  as  to  me, 
Is  dearer  than  all  dreams  of  days  undone, 

This  song  I  give  you  of  the  sovereign  three 

That  are,  as  life  and  sleep  and  death  are,  one  :  • 

A  song  the  sea-wind  gave  me  from  the  sea, 

Where  nought  of  man's  endures  before  the  sun. 

1882  was  a  memorable  year  in  the  life  of  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton.  The  two  most  important  volumes  of  poetry 
published  in  that  year  were  dedicated  to  him.  Rossetti's 
'  Ballads  and  Sonnets,'  the  book  which  contains  the 
chief  work  of  his  life,  bore  the  following  inscrip- 
tion : — 

TO 

THEODORE    WATTS 

THE   FRIEND    WHOM   MY   VERSE   WON    FOR  ME, 

THESE    FEW    MORE    PAGES 

ARE   AFFECTIONATELY    INSCRIBED. 


272  '  The  Life  Poetic  * 

A  few  weeks  later  Mr.  Swinburne's  *  Tristram  of 
Lyonesse,'  the  volume  which  contains  what  I  regard  as 
his  ripest  and  richest  poetry,  was  thus  inscribed  : — 

TO    MY    BEST   FRIEND 
THEODORE   WATTS 
I    DEDICATE    IN    THIS    BOOK 
THE    BEST   I    HAVE   TO    GIVE    HIM. 

Spring  speaks  again,  and  all  our  woods  are  stirred, 
And  all  our  wide  glad  wastes  aflower  around. 
That  twice  have  made  keen  April's  clarion  sound 

Since  here  we  first  together  saw  and  heard 

Spring's  light  reverberate  and  reiterate  word 

Shine  forth  and  speak  in  season.     Life  stands  crowned 
Here  v«th  the  best  one  thing  it  ever  found, 

As  of  my  soul's  best  birthdays  dawns  the  third. 

There  is  a  friend  that  as  the  wise  man  saith 
Cleaves  closer  than  a  brother  :    nor  to  me 

Hath  time  not  shown,  through  days  like  waves  at  strife 
This  truth  more  sure  than  all  things  else  but  death, 
This  pearl  most  perfect  found  in  all  the  sea 

That  washes  toward  your  feet  these  waifs  of  life. 

The  Pines, 

April,  1882. 

But  the  finest  of  all  these  words  of  affection  are  per- 
haps those  opening  the  dedicatory  epistle  prefixed  to 
the  magnificent  Collected  Edition  of  Mr.  Swinburne's 
poems  issued  by  Messrs.  Chatto  and  Windus  in  1904  : — 

'  To  my  best  and  dearest  friend  I  dedicate  the  first 
collected  edition  of  my  poems,  and  to  him  I  address 
what  I  have  to  say  on  the  occasion.' 

Once  also  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  dedicated  verses  of  his 
own  to  Mr.  Swinburne,  to  wit,  in  1897,  when  he  pub- 


'Jubilee  Greeting  at  Spithead '  273 

lished  that  impassioned  lyric  in  praise  of  a  nobler  and 
larger  Imperialism,  the  *  Jubilee  Greeting  at  Spithead  to 
the  Men  of  Greater  Britain  '  : — 

"TO    OUR   GREAT    CONTEMPORARY   WRITER    OF 

PATRIOTIC   POETRY, 

ALGERNON    CHARLES    SWINBURNE. 

You  and  I  are  old  enough  to  remember  the  time 
when,  in  the  world  of  letters  at  least,  patriotism  was  not 
so  fashionable  as  it  is  now — when,  indeed,  love  of  England 
suggested  Philistinism  rather  than  *  sweetness  and  light.' 
Other  people,  such  as  Frenchmen,  Italians,  Irishmen, 
Hungarians,  Poles,  might  give  voice  to  a  passionate  love 
of  the  land  of  their  birth,  but  not  Englishmen.  It  was 
very  curious,  as  I  thought  then,  and  as  I  think  now. 
And  at  that  period  love  of  the  Colonies  was,  if  pos- 
sible, even  more  out  of  fashion  than  was  love  of  England ; 
and  this  temper  was  not  confined  to  the  '  cultured '  class. 
It  pervaded  society  and  had  an  immense  influence  upon 
politics.  On  one  side  the  Manchester  school,  religiously 
hoping  that  if  the  Colonies  could  be  insulted  so  effec- 
tually that  they  must  needs  (unless  they  abandoned  all 
self-respect)  *  set  up  for  themselves,'  the  same  enormous 
spurt  would  be  given  to  British  trade  which  occurred 
after  the  birth  of  the  United  States,  bade  the  Colonies 
'  cut  the  painter.'  On  the  other  hand  the  old  Tories 
and  Whigs,  with  a  few  noble  exceptions,  having  never 
really  abandoned  the  old  traditions  respecting  the  un- 
importance of  all  matters  outside  the  parochial  circle  of 
European  diplomacy,  scarcely  knew  where  the  Colonies 
were  situated  on  the  map. 

There  was,  however,  in  these  islands  one  person  who 
saw  as  clearly  then  as  all  see  now  the  infinite  importance 
of  the   expansion   of  England   to   the   true   progress   of 

W.-D.  18 


274  *The  Life  Poetic* 

mankind — the  Great  Lady  whose  praises  in  this  regard  I 
have  presumed  to  sing  in  the  opening  stanza  of  these 
verses. 

I  may  be  wrong,  but  I,  who  am,  as  you  know,  no 
courtier,  believe  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart  that 
without  the  influence  of  the  Queen  this  expansion  would 
have  been  seriously  delayed.  Directly  and  indirectly 
her  influence  must  needs  be  enormous,  and,  as  regards 
this  matter,  it  has  always  been  exercised — energetically 
and  even  eagerly  exercised — ^in  one  way.  This  being 
my  view,  I  have  for  years  been  urging  more  than  one 
friend  clothed  with  an  authority  such  as  I  do  not  possess 
to  bring  the  subject  prominently  before  the  people  of 
England  at  a  time  when  England's  expansion  is  a  phrase 
in  everybody's  mouth.  I  have  not  succeeded.  Let  this 
be  my  apology  for  undertaking  the  task  myself  and  for 
inscribing  to  you,  as  well  as  to  the  men  of  Greater  Britain, 
these  lines." 

I  feel  that  it  is  a  great  privilege  to  be  able  to  present  to 
my  readers  beautiful  photogravures  and  photographs  of 
interiors  and  pictures  and  works  of  art  at  'The  Pines,' 
Many  of  the  pictures  and  other  works  of  art  at '  The 
Pines '  are  mementoes  of  a  most  interesting  kind. 

Among  these  is  the  superb  portrait  of  Madox  Brown, 
at  this  moment  hanging  in  the  Bradford  Exhibition. 
Madox  Brown  painted  it  for  the  owner.  An  interesting 
story  is  connected  with  it.  One  day,  not  long  after  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  had  become  intimate  with  Madox  Brown, 
the  artist  told  him  he  specially  wanted  his  boy  Nolly  to 
read  to  him  a  story  that  he  had  been  writing,  and  asked 
him  to  meet  the  boy  at  dinner. 

'  Nolly  been  writing  a  story  !  '  exclaimed  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton. 


Oliver  Madox  Brown  275 

*  I  understand  your  smile,'  said  Madox  Brown ;  *  but 
you  will  find  it  better  than  you  think.' 

At  this  time  Oliver  Madox  Brown  seemed  a  loose- 
limbed  hobbledehoy,  young  enough  to  be  at  school. 
After  dinner  Oliver  began  to  read  the  opening  chapters 
of  the  story  in  a  not  very  impressive  way,  and  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  suggested  that  he  should  take  it  home  and  read 
it  at  his  leisure.  This  was  agreed  to.  Pressure  of  affairs 
prevented  him  from  taking  it  up  for  some  time.  At 
last  he  did  take  it  up,  but  he  had  scarcely  read  a  dozen 
pages  when  he  was  called  away,  and  he  asked  a  mem- 
ber of  his  family  to  gather  up  the  pages  from  the  sofa 
and  put  them  into  an  escritoire.  On  his  return  home  at 
a  very  late  hour  he  found  the  lady  intently  reading  the 
manuscript,  and  she  declared  that  she  could  not  go  to 
bed  till  she  had  finished  it. 

On  the  next  day  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  again  took  up 
the  manuscript,  and  was  held  spellbound  by  it.  It  was 
a  story  of  passion,  of  intense  love,  and  intense  hate,  told 
with  a  crude  power  that  was  irresistible. 

Mr.  Watts-Dunton  knew  Smith  Williams  (the  reader 
of  Smith,  Elder  &  Co.),  whose  name  is  associated  with 
'  Jane  Eyre.'  He  showed  it  to  Williams,  who  was 
greatly  struck  Jdj  it,  but  pointed  out  that  it  terminated 
in  a  violent  scene  which  the  novel-reading  public  of  that 
time  would  not  like,  and  asked  for  a  concluding  scene  less 
daring.  The  ending  was  modified,  and  the  story,  when  it 
appeared,  attracted  very  great  attention.  Madox  Brown 
was  so  grateful  to  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  for  his  services  in 
the  matter  that  he  insisted  on  expressing  his  gratitude 
in  some  tangible  form.  Miss  Lucy  Madox  Brown  (after- 
wards Mrs.  W.  M.  Rossetti)  was  consulted,  and  at  once 
suggested  a  portrait  of  the  painter,  painted  by  himself. 
This  was  done,  and  the  result  was  the  masterpiece  which 


276  «  The  Life  Poetic  * 

has  been  so  often  exhibited.  From  that  moment  Oliver 
Madox  Brown  took  his  place  in  the  literary  world  of  his 
time.  The  mention  of  Oliver  Madox  Brown  will  re- 
mind the  older  generation  of  his  friendship  with  Philip 
Bourke  Marston,  the  blind  poet,  one  of  the  most 
pathetic  chapters  in  literary  annals. 

Although  Rossetti  never  fulfilled  his  intention  of  illus- 
trating what  he  called  *  Watts's  magnificent  star  sonnet,' 
he  began  what  would  have  been  a  superb  picture  illus- 
trating Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  sonnet,  *  The  Spirit  of 
the  Rainbow.'  He  finished  a  large  charcoal  drawing  of 
it,  which  is  thus  described  by  Mr.  William  Sharp  in  his 
book,  *  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti :  a  Record  and  a 
Study '  :— 

"  It  represents  a  female  figure  standing  in  a  gauzy 
circle  composed  of  a  rainbow,  and  on  the  frame  is  written 
the  following  sonnet  (the  poem  in  question  by  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton)  : 

THE   WOOD-HAUNTER'S    DREAM 

The  wild  things  loved  me,    but  a  wood-sprite  said  : 

*  Though  meads  are  sweet  when  flowers  at  morn  uncurl, 
And  woods  are  sweet  withjnightingale  and  merle. 
Where  are  the  dreams  that  flush'd  thy  childish  bed  ? 
The  Spirit  of  the  Rainbow  thou  would'st  wed  !  ' 
I  rose,  I  found  her — found  a  rain-drenched  girl 
Whose  eyes  of  azure  and  limbs  like  roseate  pearl 
Coloured  the  rain  above  her  golden  head. 

But  when  I  stood  by  that  sweet  vision's  side 
I  saw  no  more  the  Rainbow's  lovely  stains ; 

To  her  by  whom  the  glowing  heavens  were  dyed 
The  sun  showed  naught  but  dripping  woods  and  plains : 
'  God  gives  the  world  the  Rainbow,  her  the  rains,* 

The  wood-sprite  laugh'd,  '  Our  seeker  finds  a  bride  !' 


'PiCTLRE    FOR   A   SlORY  " 
(Face    and    Instrument    riesigned    bv    D.    G.    Rossetti,    background    by    Dunn) 

Ph^,r',.   Po'..',,  Putrux 


The  Loveliest  of  all  Rossetti's  Models    277 

Rossetti  meant  to  have  completed  the  design  with  the 

*  woods  and  plains '  seen  in  perspective  through  the 
arch  ;  and  the  composition  has  an  additional  and  special 
interest  because  it  is  the  artist's  only  successful  attempt 
at  the  wholly  nude — the  *  Spirit '  being  extremely  graceful 
in  poise  and  outline. 

I  am  able  to  give  a  reproduction  of  another  of 
Rossetti's  beautiful  studies  which  has  never  been  pub- 
lished, but  which  has  been  very  much  talked  about. 
Many  who  have  seen  it  at  '  The  Pines '  agree  with 
the  late  Lord  de  Tabley  that  Rossetti  in  this  crayon 
created  the  loveliest  of  all  his  female  faces.  It 
is  thus  described  by  Mr.  William  Sharp  :  "  The 
drawing,  which,   for   the    sake   of   a   name,  I  will   call 

*  Forced  Music,'  represents  a  nude  half-figure  of  a  girl 
playing  on  a  mediaeval  stringed  instrument  elaborately 
ornamented.  The  face  is  of  a  type  unlike  that  of  any 
other  of  the  artist's  subjects,  and  extraordinarily 
beautiful." 

I  should  explain  that  the  background  and  the  ragged 
garb  of  the  girl  in  the  version  of  the  picture  here  repro- 
duced, are  by  Dunn.  These  two  exquisite  drawings 
were  made  from  the  same  girl,  who  never  sat  for  any 
other  pictures.  Her  face  has  been  described  as  being 
unlike  that  of  any  other  of  Rossetti's  models  and  yet 
combining    the    charm    of  them  all. 


I  am  strictly  prohibited  by  the  subject  of  this  study 
from  giving  any  personal  description  of  him.  For  my  part 
I  do  not  sympathize  with  this  extreme  sensitiveness  and 
dislike  to  having  one's  personal  characteristics  described 


278  *The  Life   Poetic* 

in  print.  What  is  there  so  dreadful  or  so  sacred  in  mere 
print  ?  The  feeling  upon  this  subject  is  a  reminiscence, 
I  think,  of  archaic  times,  when  between  conversation 
and  printed  matter  there  was  '  a  great  gulf  fixed.'  Both 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  and  his  friend  Mr.  Swinburne  must 
be  aware  that  as  soon  as  they  have  left  any  gathering  of 
friends  or  strangers,  remarks — delicate  enough,  no  doubt 
— are  made  about  them,  as  they  are  made  about  every 
other  person  who  is  talked  about  in  ever  so  small  a 
degree.  Not  so  very  long  ago  I  remained  in  a  room  after 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  had  left  it.  Straightway  there  were 
the  freest  remarks  about  him,  not  in  the  least  unkind,  but 
free.  Some  did  not  expect  to  see  so  dark  a  man  ;  some 
expected  to  see  him  much  darker  than  they  found  him 
to  be  ;  some  recalled  the  fact  that  Miss  Corkran,  in  her 
reminiscences,  described  his  dark-brown  eyes  as*  green' — 
through  a  printer's  error,  no  doubt.  Some  then  began 
to  contrast  his  appearance  with  that  of  his  absent  friend, 
Mr.  Swinburne — and  so  on,  and  so  on.  Now,  what 
is  the  difference  between  being  thus  discussed  in  print 
and  in  conversation  ?  Merely  that  the  printed  report 
reaches  a  wider — a  little  wider — audience.  That  is 
all.  I  do  not  think  it  is  an  unfair  evasion  of  his  prohi- 
bition to  reproduce  one  of  the  verbal  snap-shots  of 
him  that  have  appeared  in  the  papers.  Some  energetic 
gentleman — possibly  some  one  living  in  the  neighbour- 
hood— took  the  following  '  Kodak '  of  him.  It  appeared 
in  '  M.A.P.'  and  it  is  really  as  good  a  thumb-nail  portrait 
of  him  as  could  be  painted.  In  years  to  come,  when 
he  and  I  and  the  *  Kodaker  '  are  dead,  it  may  be  found 
more  interesting,  perhaps,  than  anything  I  have  written 
about  him  : — 

*'  Every,  or  nearly  every,  morning,  as  the  first  glimmer 


Sunrise  on  Wimbledon   Common         279 

of  dawn  lightens  the  sky,  there  appears  on  Wimbledon 
Common  a  man,  whose  skin  has  been  tanned  by  sun 
and  wind  to  the  rich  brown  of  the  gypsies  he  loves  so 
well ;  his  forehead  is  round,  and  fairly  high  ;  his  brown 
eyes  and  the  brow  above  them  give  his  expression  a  pierc- 
ing appearance.  For  the  rest,  his  voice  is  firm  and  resonant, 
and  his  brown  hair  and  thick  moustache  are  partially 
shot  with  grey.  But  he  looks  not  a  day  over  forty-five. 
Generally  he  carries  a  book.  Often,  however,  he  turns 
from  it  to  watch  the  birds  and  the  rabbits.  For — it  will 
be  news  to  lie-abeds  of  the  district — ^Wimbledon  Common 
is  lively  with  rabbits,  revelling  in  the  freshness  of  the 
dawn,  rabbits  which  ere  the  rush  for  the  morning  train 
begins,  will  all  have  vanished  until  the  moon  rises  again. 
To  him,  morning,  although  he  has  seen  more  sunrises 
than  most  men,  still  makes  an  ever  fresh  and  glorious 
pageant.  This  usually  solitary  figure  is  that  of  Mr. 
Theodore  Watts-Dunton,  and  to  his  habit  of  early  rising 
the  famous  poet,  novelist,  and  critic  ascribes  his  remark- 
able health  and  vigour." 

The  holidays  of  the  two  poets  have  not  been  confined 
to  their  visits  to  the  sea-side.  One  place  of  retreat  used 
to  be  the  residence  of  the  late  Benjamin  Jowett,  at  Balliol, 
when  the  men  were  down,  or  one  of  his  country  places, 
such  as  Boar's  Hill. 

I  have  frequently  heard  Mr.  Swinburne  and  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  talk  about  the  famous  Master  of  Balliol.  I  have 
heard  Mr.  Swinburne  recall  the  great  admiration  which 
Jowett  used  to  express  for  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  intellec- 
tual powers  and  various  accomplishments.  There  was 
no  one,  I  have  heard  Mr.  Swinburne  say,  whom  Jowett 
held  in  greater  esteem.  That  air  of  the  college  don, 
which  has  been  described  by  certain  of  Jowett's  friends, 


28o  'The  Life  Poetic' 

left  the  Master  entirely  when  he  was  talking  to  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton. 

Among  the  pleasant  incidents  in  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's 
life  were  these  visits  with  Mr.  Swinburne  to  Jowett's 
house,  where  he  had  the  opportunity  of  meeting  some  of 
the  most  prominent  men  of  the  time.  He  has  described 
the  Balliol  dinner  parties,  but  I  have  no  room  here  to  do 
more  than  allude  to  them.  I  must,  however,  quote  his 
famous  pen  portrait  of  Jowett  which  appeared  in  the 
*  Athenaeum  '  of  December  22,  1894. 

*'  It  may  seem  difficult  to  imagine  many  points  of 
sympathy  between  the  poet  of  'Atalanta'  and  the 
student  of  Plato  and  translator  of  Thucydides ;  and  yet 
the  two  were  bound  to  each  other  by  ties  of  no  common 
strength.  They  took  expeditions  into  the  country 
together,  and  Mr.  Swinburne  was  a  not  infrequent 
guest  at  Balliol  and  also  at  Jowett's  quiet  autumnal 
retreat  at  Boar's  Hill.  The  Master  of  Balliol,  indeed, 
had  a  quite  remarkable  faculty  of  drawing  to  himself 
the  admiration  of  men  of  poetic  genius.  To  say  which 
poet  admired  and  loved  him  most  deeply — Tennyson, 
Browning,  Matthew  Arnold,  or  Mr.  Swinburne — 
would  be  difficult.  He  seemed  to  join  their  hands 
all  round  him,  and  these  intimacies  with  the  poets 
were  not  the  result  of  the  smallest  sacrifice  of  inde- 
pendence on  the  part  of  Jowett.  He  was  always  quite 
as  frank  in  telling  a  poet  what  he  disliked  in  his 
verses  as  in  telling  him  what  he  liked.  And  although 
the  poets  of  our  own  epoch  are,  perhaps,  as  irritable  a 
race  as  they  were  in  times  past,  and  are  as  little  impervious 
as  ever  to  flattery,  it  is,  after  all,  in  virtue  partly  of  a 
superior  intelligence  that  poets  are  poets,  and  in  the 
long   run    their    friendship    is    permanently    given     to 


Pen  Portrait  of  Jowett  28 1 

straightforward  men  like  Jowett.  That  Jowett's  judg- 
ment in  artistic  matters,  and  especially  in  poetry,  was 
borne  no  one  knew  better  than  himself,  and  he  had  a 
way  of  letting  the  poets  see  that  upon  poetical  subjects 
he  must  be  taken  as  only  a  partially  qualified  judge,  and 
this  alone  gained  for  him  a  greater  freedom  in  criticism 
than  would  otherwise  have  been  allowed  to  him.  For, 
notwithstanding  the  Oxford  epigram  upon  him  as  a 
pretender  to  absolute  wisdom,  no  man  could  be  more 
modest  than  he  upon  subjects  of  which  he  had  only  the 
ordinary  knowledge.  He  was  fond  of  quoting  Hallam's 
words  that  without  an  exhaustive  knowledge  of  details 
there  can  be  no  accurate  induction  ;  and  where  he  saw 
that  his  interlocutor  really  had  special  knowledge,  he 
was  singularly  diffident  about  expressing  his  opinion. 
They  are  not  so  far  wrong  who  take  it  for  granted  that 
one  who  was  able  to  secure  the  loving  admiration  of  four 
of  the  greatest  poets  of  the  Victorian  epoch,  all  extremely 
unlike  each  other,  was  not  only  a  great  and  a  rare  intelli- 
gence, but  a  man  of  a  nature  most  truly  noble  and  most 
truly  lovable.  The  kind  of  restraint  in  social  intercourse 
resulting  from  what  has  been  called  his  taciturnity 
passed  so  soon  as  his  interlocutor  realized  (which  he  very 
quickly  did)  that  Jowett's  taciturnity,  or  rather  his 
lack  of  volubility,  arose  from  the  peculiarly  honest 
nature  of  one  who  had  no  idea  of  talking  for  talking's 
sake.  If  a  proper  and  right  response  to  a  friend's  remark 
chanced  to  come  to  his  lips  spontaneously,  he  was  quite 
willing  to  deliver  it ;  but  if  the  response  was  neither 
spontaneous  nor  likely  to  be  adequate,  he  refused  to 
manufacture  one  for  the  mere  sake  of  keeping  the  ball 
rolling,  as  is  so  often  the  case  with  the  shallow  or  un- 
educated man.  It  is,  however,  extremely  difficult  to 
write  reminiscences  of  men  so  taciturn  as  Jowett.     In 


282  'The  Life   Poetic* 

order  to  bring  out  one  of  Jowett's  pithy  sayings,  the 
interlocutor  who  would  record  it  has  also  to  record  the 
words  of  his  own  which  awoke  the  saying,  and  then  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  avoid  an  appearance  of  egotism." 

Still  more  pleasurable  than  these  relaxations  at  Oxford 
were  the  visits  that  the  two  friends  used  to  pay  to 
Jowett's  rural  retreat  at  Boar's  Hill,  about  three  miles 
from  Oxford,  for  the  purpose  of  revelling  in  the  riches 
of  the  dramatic  room  in  the  Bodleian.  The  two  poets 
used  to  spend  the  entire  day  in  that  enchanted  room, 
and  then  walk  back  with  the  Master  to  Boar's  Hill. 
Every  reader  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  poetry  will  re- 
member the  following  sonnets  : — 

THE  LAST  WALK   FROM    BOAR'S   HILL 
To  A.  C.  S. 
I 

One  after  one  they  go ;   and  glade  and  heath, 

Where  once  we  walked  with  them,  and  garden  bowers 
They  made  so  dear,  are  haunted  by  the  hours 

Once  musical  of  those  who  sleep  beneath ; 

One  after  one  does  Sorrow's  every  wreath 
Bind  closer  you  and  me  with  funeral  flowers, 
And  Love  and  Memory  from  each  loss  of  ours 

Forge  conquering  glaives  to  quell  the  conqueror  Death. 

Since  Love  and  Memory  now  refuse  to  yield 

The  friend  with  whom  we  walk  through  mead  and  field 

To-day  as  on  that  day  when  last  we  parted, 
Can  he  be  dead,  indeed,  whatever  seem  ? 
Love  shapes  a  presence  out  of  Memory's  dream, 

A  living  presence,  Jowett  golden-hearted. 

n 

Can  he  be  dead  f     We  walk  through  flowery  ways 
From  Boar's  Hill  down  to  Oxford,  fain  to  know 


George  Meredith  283 

What  nugget-gold,  in  drift  of  Time's  long  flow, 
The  Bodleian  mine  hath  stored  from  richer  days ; 
He,  fresh  as  on  that  morn,  with  sparkling  gaze, 

Hair  bright  as  sunshine,  white  as  moonlit  snow, 

Still  talks  of  Plato  while  the  scene  below 
Breaks  gleaming  through  the  veil  of  sunlit  haze. 

Can  he  be  dead  ?     He  shares  our  homeward  walk, 
And  by  the  river  you  arrest  the  talk 

To  see  the  sun  transfigure  ere  he  sets 
The  boatmen's  children  shining  in  the  wherry 

And  on  the  floating  bridge  the  ply-rope  wets, 
Making  the  clumsy  craft  an  angel's  ferry. 

Ill 

The  river  crossed,  we  walk  'neath  glowing  skies 

Through  grass  where  cattle  feed  or  stand  and  stare 
With  burnished  coats,  glassing  the  coloured  air — 

Fading  as  colour  after  colour  dies : 

We  pass  the  copse ;   we  round  the  leafy  rise — 
Start  many  a  coney  and  partridge,  hern  and  hare  ; 
We  win  the  scholar's  nest — his  simple  fare 

Made  royal-rich  by  welcome  in  his  eyes. 

Can  he  be  dead  ?     His  heart  was  drawn  to  you. 
Ah !    well  that  kindred  heart  within  him  knew  ' 

The  poet's  heart  of  gold  that  gives  the  spell ! 
Can  he  be  dead  ?     Your  heart  being  drawn  to  him, 
How  shall  ev'n  Death  make  that  dear  presence  dim 

For  you  who  loved  him — us  who  loved  him  well  ? 

Another  and  much  lovelier  retreat,  whither  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  has  always  loved  to  go,  is  the  cottage  at  Box- 
hill.  Not  the  least  interesting  among  the  beautiful  friend- 
ships between  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  and  his  illustrious 
contemporaries  is  that  between  himself  and  Mr.  George 
Meredith.  Mr.  William  Sharp  can  speak  with  authority 
on  this  subject,  being  himself  the  intimate  friend  of  Mr. 
Meredith,    Mr.    Swinburne,    and    Mr.   Watts-Dunton. 


284  'The  Life   Poetic' 

Speaking  of  Swinburne's  championship,  in  the  *  Spectator,' 
of  Meredith's  first  book  of  poems,  Mr.  Sharp,  in  an  article 
in  the  *  Pall  Mall  Magazine,'  of  December  1901,  says  : — ■ 

"  Among  those  who  read  and  considered  "  [Meredith's 
work]  "  was  another  young  poet,  who  had,  indeed,  already 
heard  of  Swinburne  as  one  of  the  most  promising  of  the 
younger  men,  but  had  not  yet  met  him.  ...  If  the  letter 
signed  *  A.  C.  Swinburne  '  had  not  appeared,  another 
signed  '  Theodore  Watts '  would  have  been  published, 
to  the  like  effect.  It  was  not  long  before  the  logic  of 
events  was  to  bring  George  Meredith,  A.  C.  Swinburne, 
and  Theodore  Watts  into  personal  communion." 

The  first  important  recognition  of  George  Meredith 
as  a  poet  was  the  article  by  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  in  the 
*  Athenaeum  '  on  '  Poems  and  Lyrics  of  the  Joy  of  Earth.' 
After  this  appeared  articles  appreciative  of  Meredith's 
prose  fiction  by  W.  E.  Henley  and  others.  But  it  was 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  who  led  the  way.  The  most  touch- 
ing of  all  the  testimonies  of  love  and  admiration  which 
Mr.  Meredith  has  received  from  Mr. Watts-Dunton,  or  in- 
deed, from  anybody  else,  is  the  beautiful  sonnet  addressed 
to  him  on  his  seventy-fourth  birthday.  It  appeared  in 
the  *  Saturday  Review'  of  February  15,  1902  : — 

TO  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

(on  his  seventy-fourth  birthday) 

This  time,  dear  friend — this  time  my  birthday  greeting 
GDmes  heavy  of  funeral  tears — I  think  of  you, 
And  say,  '  'Tis  evening  with  him — that  is  true — 

But  evening  bright  as  noon,  if  faster  fleeting ; 

Still  he  is  spared — while  Spring  and  Winter,  meeting, 
Clasp  hands  around  the  roots  'neath  frozen  dew — 
To  see  the  '  Joy  of  Earth '  break  forth  anew. 

And  hear  it  on  the  hillside  warbling,  bleating.' 


Tennyson  285 

Love's  remnant  melts  and  melts ;   but,  if  our  days 

Are  swifter  than  a  weaver's  shuttle,  still. 
Still  Winter  has  a  sun — a  sun  whose  rays 

Can  set  the  young  lamb  dancing  on  the  hill. 
And  set  the  daisy,  in  the  woodland  ways. 

Dreaming  of  her  who  brings  the  daffodil. 

The  allusion  to  '  funeral  tears '  was  caused  by  one  of 
the  greatest  bereavements  which  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has 
sustained  in  recent  years,  namely,  that  of  Frank  Groome, 
whose  obituary  he  wrote  for  the  *  Athenaeum.'  I  have 
not  the  honour  of  knowing  Meredith,  but  I  have  often 
heard  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  describe  with  a  glow  of  affec- 
tionate admiration  the  fine  charm  of  his  character  and 
the  amazing  pregnancy  in  thought  and  style  of  his  con- 
versation. 

But  the  most  memorable  friendship  that  during  their 
joint  occupancy  of  'The Pines'  Mr.Watts-Dunton formed, 
was  that  with  Tennyson. 

I  have  had  many  conversations  with  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  on  the  subject  of  Tennyson,  and  I  am  persuaded 
that,  owing  to  certain  incongruities  between  the  external 
facets  of  Tennyson's  character  and  the  '  abysmal  deeps  ' 
of  his  personality,  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  after  the  poet's 
son,  is  the  only  man  living  who  is  fully  competent  to  speak 
with  authority  of  the  great  poet.  Not  only  is  he  himself 
a  poet  who  must  be  placed  among  his  contemporaries 
nearest  to  his  more  illustrious  friend,  but  between  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  and  Tennyson  from  their  first  meeting 
there  was  an  especial  sympathy.  So  long  ago  as  1881 
was  published  his  sonnet  to  Tennyson  on  his  seventy-first 
birthday.  It  attracted  much  attention,  and  although 
it  was  not  sent  to  the  Laureate,  he  read  it  and  was  much 
touched  by  it,  as  well  he  might  be,  for  it  is  as  noble  a 
tribute  as  one  poet  could  pay  to  another  : — 


286  '  The  Life  Poetic  * 

To  Alfred  Tennyson,  on  his  publishing,  in  his  seventy- 
first  YEAR,  THE  MOST  RICHLY  VARIOUS  VOLUME  OF  ENGLISH 
VERSE    THAT    HAS   APPEARED   IN    HIS    OWN    CENTURY. 

Beyond  the  peaks  of  Kaf  a  rivulet  springs 

Whose  magic  waters  to  a  flood  expand, 

Distilling,  for  all  drinkers  on  each  hand, 
The  immortal  sweets  enveiled  in  mortal  things. 
From  honeyed  flowers, — from  balm  of  zephyr-wings, — 

From  fiery  blood  of  gems,i  through  all  the  land, 

The  river  draws ; — then,  in  one  rainbow-band. 
Ten  leagues  of  nectar  o'er  the  ocean  flings. 

Rich  with  the  riches  of  a  poet's  years. 

Stained  in  all  colours  of  Man's  destiny, 
So,  Tennyson,  thy  widening  river  nears 

The  misty  main,  and,  taking  now  the  sea. 
Makes  rich  and  warm  with  human  smiles  and  tears 

The  ashen  billows  of  Eternity. 

Some  two  or  three  years  after  this  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
met  the  Laureate  at  a  garden  party,  and  they  fraternized 
at  once.  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  had  an  open  invitation  to 
Aldworth  and  Farringford  whenever  he  could  go,  and 
this  invitation  came  after  his  very  first  stay  at  Aldworth. 
One  point  in  which  he  does  not  agree  with  Coleridge 
(in  the  '  Table  Talk ')  or  with  Mr.  Swinburne,  is  the 
theory  that  Tennyson's  ear  was  defective  at  the  very 
first.  He  contends  that  if  Tennyson  in  his  earlier  poems 
seemed  to  show  a  defective  ear,  it  was  always  when  in 
the  great  struggle  between  the  demands  of  mere  metrical 
music  and  those  of  the  other  great  requisites  of  poetry, 
thought,  emotion,  colour  and  outline,  he  found  it  best 
occasionally  to  make  metrical  music  in  some  measure  yield. 
As  an  illustration  of  Tennyson's  sensibility  to  the  most 

>  According  to  a  Mohammedan  tradition,  the  mountains  of  Kaf  are 
entirely  composed  of  gems,  whose  reflected  splendours  colour  the  sky. 


Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  287 

delicate  nuances  of  metrical  music,  I  remember  at  one 
of  those  charming  '  symposia  '  at '  The  Pines,'  hearing  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  say  that  Tennyson  was  the  only  English 
poet  who  gave  the  attention  to  the  sibilant  demanded 
by  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  ;  and  I  remember  one 
delightful  instance  that  he  gave  of  this.  It  referred  to 
the  two  sonnets  upon  '  The  Omnipotence  of  Love  '  in 
the  universe  which  I  have  always  considered  to  be 
the  keynote  of  *  Aylwin  '  and  '  The  Coming  of  Love.' 
These  sonnets  appeared  in  an  article  called  *  The  New 
Hero  '  in  the  *  EngHsh  Illustrated  Magazine  '  in  1883. 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  was  staying  at  Aldworth  when  the 
proof  of  the  article  reached  him.  The  present  Lord 
Tennyson  (who,  as  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has  often  averred, 
has  so  much  literary  insight  that  if  he  had  not  been  the 
son  of  the  greatest  poet  of  his  time,  he  would  himself 
have  taken  a  high  position  in  literature)  read  out  in  one 
of  the  little  Aldworth  bowers  to  his  father  and  to  Miss 
Mary  Boyle  the  article  and  the  sonnets.  Tennyson, 
who  was  a  severe  critic  of  his  own  work,  but  extremely 
lenient  in  criticising  the  work  of  other  men,  said  there 
was  one  feature  in  one  of  the  lines  of  one  of  the  sonnets 
which  he  must  challenge.     The  line  was  this  : — 

And  scents  of  flowers  and  shadow  of  wavering  trees. 

Now  it  SO  chanced  that  this  very  line  had  been  especi- 
ally praised  by  two  other  fine  critics,  D.  G.  Rossetti  and 
William  Morris,  to  whom  the  sonnet  had  been  read  in 
manuscript.  Tennyson's  criticism  was  that  there  were  too 
many  sibilants  in  the  line,  and  that  although,  other 
things  being  equal,  *  scents  '  might  be  more  accurate 
than  '  scent,'  this  was  a  case  where  the  claims  of  music 
ought  to  be  dominant  over  other  claims.  The  present 
Lord  Tennyson  took  the  same  view,  and  I  am  sure  they 


288  *The  Life  Poetic' 

were  right,  and  that  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  was  right,  in 
finally  adopting  *  scent '  in  place  of  '  scents.' 

Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has  always  contended  that  Tenny- 
son's sensibility  to  criticism  was  the  result,  not  of  im- 
perious egotism,  but  of  a  kind  of  morbid  modesty. 
Tennyson  used  to  say  that  "  to  whatsoever  exalted 
position  a  poet  might  reach,  he  was  not  *  born  to  the 
purple,'  and  that  if  the  poet's  mind  was  especially  plastic 
he  could  never  shake  off  the  reminiscence  of  the  time 
when  he  was  nobody." 

On  a  certain  occasion  Tennyson  took  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  into  the  summer-house  at  Aldworth  to  read  to 
him  *  Becket,'  then  in  manuscript.  Although  another 
visitor,  whom  he  esteemed  very  highly,  both  as  a  poet 
and  an  old  friend,  was  staying  there,  Tennyson  said  that 
he  should  prefer  to  read  the  play  to  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
alone.  And  this  no  doubt  was  because  he  desired  an 
absolute  freedom  of  criticism.  Freedom  of  criticism  we 
may  be  sure  he  got,  for  of  all  men  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
is  the  most  outspoken  on  the  subject  of  the  poet's  art. 
The  entire  morning  was  absorbed  in  the  reading  ;  and, 
says  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  '  the  remarks  upon  poetic  and 
dramatic  art  that  fell  from  Tennyson  would  have  made 
the  fortune  of  any  critic' 

On  the  subject  of  what  has  been  called  Tennyson's 
gaucherie  and  rudeness  to  women  I  have  seen  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  wax  very  indignant.  '  There  was  to  me,'  he 
said,  *  the  greatest  charm  in  what  is  called  Tennyson's 
bluntness.  I  would  there  were  a  leaven  of  Tenny- 
son's single-mindedness  in  the  society  of  the  present 
day.' 

One  anecdote  concerning  what  is  stigmatized  as  Tenny- 
son's rudeness  to  women  shows  how  entirely  the  man  was 
misunderstood.     Mrs.  Oliphant  has  stated  that  Tennyson, 


Tennyson's  Supposed  Rudeness  289 

in  his  own  house,  after  listening  in  silence  to  an  inter- 
change of  amiable  compliments  between  herself  and  Mrs. 
Tennyson,  said  abruptly,  '  What  liars  you  women  are  ! ' 
*  I  seem  to  hear,'  said  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  *  Tennyson 
utter  the  exclamation — utter  it  in  that  tone  of  humour- 
ous playfulness,  followed  by  that  loud  guffaw,  which 
neutralized  the  rudeness  as  entirely  as  Douglas  Jerrold's 
laugh  neutralized  the  sting  of  his  satire.  For  such  an 
incident  to  be  cited  as  as  instance  of  Tennyson's  rude- 
ness to  women  is  ludicrous.  When  I  knew  him  I  was,  if 
possible,  a  more  obscure  literary  man  than  I  now  am, 
and  he  treated  me  with  exactly  the  same  manly  respect 
that  he  treated  the  most  illustrious  people.  I  did  not 
feel  that  I  had  any  claim  to  such  treatment,  for  he  was, 
beyond  doubt,  the  greatest  literary  figure  in  the  world 
of  that  time.  There  seems  unfortunately  to  be  an  impulse 
of  detraction,  which  springs  up  after  a  period  of  lauda- 
tion.' 

The  only  thing  I  have  heard  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  say  in 
the  way  of  stricture  upon  Tennyson's  work  was  that, 
considering  his  enormous  powers  as  a  poet,  he  seemed 
deficient  in  the  gift  of  inventing  a  story  : — *'  The  stanzas 
beginning,  '  O,  that  'twere  possible  ' — the  nucleus  of 
'  Maud  ' — appeared  originally  in  '  The  Tribute.'  They 
were  the  finest  lines  that  Tennyson  ever  wrote — right 
away  the  finest.  They  suggested  some  superb  story  of 
passion  and  mystery  ;  and  every  reader  was  compelled 
to  make  his  own  guess  as  to  what  the  story  could  possibly 
be.  In  an  evil  moment  some  friend  suggested  that 
Tennyson  should  amplify  this  glorious  lyric  into  a  story. 
A  person  with  more  of  the  endowment  of  the  inventor 
than  Tennyson  might  perhaps  have  invented  an  adequate 
story — might  perhaps  have  invented  a  dozen  adequate 
stories ;  but  he  could  not  have  invented  a  worse  story 

W.-D.  19 


290  'The  Life  Poetic' 

than  the  one  used  by  Tennyson  in  the  writing  of  his 
monodrama.  But  think  of  the  poetic  riches  poured  into 
it ! " 

I  remember  a  peculiarly  subtle  criticism  that  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  once  made  in  regard  to  '  The  Princess.' 
"  Shakspeare,"  he  said,  "  is  the  only  poet  who  has  been  able 
to  put  sincere  writing  into  a  story  the  plot  of  which 
is  fanciful.  The  extremely  insincere  story  of  'The  Prin- 
cess' is  filled  with  such  noble  passages  of  sincere  poetry 
as  '  Tears,  idle  tears,'  '  Home  they  brought  her  warrior 
dead,'  etc.,  passages  which  unfortunately  lose  two-thirds 
of  their  power  through  the  insincere  setting." 

Not  very  long  before  Tennyson  died,  the  editor  of  the 
'  Magazine  of  Art '  invited  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  to  write 
an  article  upon  the  portraits  of  Tennyson.  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  consulted  the  poet  upon  this  project,  and  he 
agreed,  promising  to  aid  in  the  selection  of  the  portraits. 
The  result  was  two  of  the  most  interesting  essays  upon 
Tennyson  that  have  ever  been  written — in  fact,  it  is 
no  exaggeration  to  say  that  without  a  knowledge  of 
these  articles  no  student  of  Tennyson  can  be  properly 
equipped.  It  is  tantalizing  that  they  have  never  been 
reprinted.  Tennyson  died  before  their  appearance,  and 
this,  of  course,  added  to  the  general  interest  felt  in 
them. 

After  Tennyson's  death  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  wrote  two 
penetrating  essays  upon  Tennyson  in  the  '  Nineteenth 
Century,'  one  of  them  being  his  reminiscences  of 
Tennyson  as  the  poet  and  the  man,  and  the  other  a 
study  of  him  as  a  nature-poet  in  reference  to  evolu- 
tion. It  will  be  a  great  pity  if  these  essays  too  are  not 
reprinted.  Mr.  Knowles,  the  editor,  also  included  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  among  the  friends  of  Tennyson  who  were 
invited  to  write  memorial  verses   on  his   death  for  the 


An  Appreciation  of  Tennyson  291 

'  Nineteenth  Century.'  To  this  series  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  contributed  the  following  sonnet,  which  is  one 
of  the  several  poems  upon  Tennyson  not  published  in 
'  The  Coming  of  Love  '  volume,  which,  I  may  note  in 
passing,  contains '  What  the  Silent  Voices  Said,'  the  fine 
'  sonnet  sequence  '  commemorating  the  burial  of  Tenny- 
son : — ■ 

IN    WESTMINSTER   ABBEY 

*The  crowd  in  the  abbey  was  very  great.' 

Morning  Newspaper. 

I  saw  no  crowd  :   yet  did  these  eyes  behold 
What  others  saw  not — his  lov'd  face  sublime 
Beneath  that  pall  of  death  in  deathless  prime 

Of  Tennyson's  long  day  that  grows  not  old ; 

And,  as  I  gazed,  my  grief  seemed  over-bold  ; 

And,  '  Who  art  thou,'  the  music  seemed  to  chime, 

'  To  mourn  that  King  of  song  whose  throne  is  Time  ?  ' 

Who  loves  a  god  should  be  of  godlike  mould. 

Then  spake  my  heart,  rebuking  Sorrow's  shame  r 

'  So  great  he  was,  striving  in  simple  strife 

With  Art  alone  to  lend  all  beauty  life — 
So  true  to  Truth  he  was,  whatever  came — 

So  fierce  against  the  false  when  lies  were  rife — 
That  love  o'erleapt  the  golden  fence  of  Fame.' 

By  the  invitation  of  the  present  Lord  Tennyson,  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  was  one  of  the  few  friends  of  the  poet, 
including  Jowett,  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  F.  T.  Palgrave,  the 
late  Duke  of  Argyll,  and  others,  who  contributed  remini- 
scences of  him  to  the  '  Life.'  In  a  few  sentences 
he  paints  this  masterly  little  miniature  of  Tennyson, 
entitled,  '  Impressions  :   1 883-1 892  ' '  : — 

"  All  are  agreed  that  D.  G.  Rossetti's  was  a  peculiarly 
winning  personality,  but  no  one  has  been  in  the  least  able 

*  Tennyson  :  A  Memoir,'  by  his  son  (1897),  vol.  ii.  p.  479. 


292  *The  Life  Poetic* 

to  say  why.  Nothing  is  easier,  however,  than  to  find 
the  charm  of  Tennyson.  It  lay  in  a  great  veracity  of 
soul :  it  lay  in  a  simple  single-mindedness,  so  childlike 
that,  unless  you  had  known  him  to  be  the  undoubted 
author  of  poems  as  marvellous  for  exquisite  art  as  for 
inspiration,  you  could  not  have  supposed  but  that  all 
subtleties — even  those  of  poetic  art — must  be  foreign  to 
a  nature  so  simple. 

Working  in  a  language  like  ours — a  language  which 
has  to  be  moulded  into  harmony  by  a  myriad  subtleties 
of  art — how  can  this  great,  inspired,  simple  nature  be 
the  delicate-fingered  artist  of  '  The  Princess,' '  The  Palace 
of  Art,'  '  The  Day-Dream,'  and  '  The  Dream  of  Fair 
Women '  ? 

Tennyson  knew  of  but  one  justification  for  the  thing 
he  said — viz.  that  it  was  the  thing  he  thought.  Behind  his 
uncompromising  directness  was  apparent  a  noble  and  a 
splendid  courtesy  of  the  grand  old  type.  As  he  stood  at 
the  porch  of  Aldworth  meeting  a  guest  or  bidding  him 
good-bye — as  he  stood  there,  tall  far  beyond  the  height 
of  average  men,  his  skin  showing  dark  and  tanned  by  the 
sun  and  wind — as  he  stood  there,  no  one  could  mistake 
him  for  anything  but  a  great  forthright  English  gentle- 
man. Always  a  man  of  an  extraordinary  beauty  of  pre- 
sence, he  showed  up  to  the  last  the  beauty  of  old  age  to 
a  degree  rarely  seen.  He  was  the  most  hospitable  of 
men.  It  was  very  rare  indeed  for  him  to  part  from  a 
guest  without  urging  him  to  return,  and  generally  with 
the  words,  *  Come  whenever  you  like.' 

Tennyson's  knowledge  of  nature — nature  in  every 
aspect — was  simply  astonishing.  His  passion  for  '  star- 
gazing '  has  often  been  commented  upon  by  readers  of 
his  poetry.  Since  Dante,  no  poet  in  any  land  has  so  loved 
the   stars.     He   had   an   equal   delight  in   watching   the 


Popular  and  Artistic  Poetry  293 

lightning ;  and  I  remember  being  at  Aldworth.  once 
during  a  thunderstorm,  when  I  was  alarmed  at  the 
temerity  with  which  he  persisted,  in  spite  of  all  remon- 
strances, in  gazing  at  the  blinding  lightning.  For  moon- 
light effects  he  had  a  passion  equally  strong,  and  it  is 
especially  pathetic  to  those  who  know  this  to  remember 
that  he  passed  away  in  the  light  he  so  much  loved — in  a 
room  where  there  was  no  artificial  light — nothing  to 
quicken  the  darkness  but  the  light  of  the  full  moon, 
which  somehow  seems  to  shine  more  brightly  at  Aid- 
worth  than  anywhere  else  in  England. 

In  a  country  having  a  composite  language  such  as 
ours  it  may  be  affirmed  with  special  emphasis  that  there 
are  two  kinds  of  poetry  :  one  appealing  to  the  unculti- 
vated masses,  the  other  appealing  to  the  few  who  are 
sensitive  to  the  felicitous  expression  of  deep  thought  and 
to  the  true  beauties  of  poetic  art. 

Of  all  poets  Shakespeare  is  the  most  popular,  and  yet 
in  his  use  of  what  Dante  calls  the  '  sieve  for  noble  words  ' 
his  skill  transcends  that  of  even  Milton,  Coleridge, 
Shelley,  and  Keats.  His  felicities  of  thought  and  of 
diction  in  the  great  passages  seem  little  short  of  miracu- 
lous, and  there  are  so  many  that  it  is  easy  to  understand 
why  he  is  so  often  spoken  of  as  being  a  kind  of  inspired 
improvisatore.  That  he  was  not  an  improvisatore,  how- 
ever, any  one  can  see  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  com- 
pare the  first  edition  of  '  Romeo  and  Juliet '  with  the  re- 
ceived text,  the  first  sketch  of  *  The  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor  '  with  the  play  as  we  now  have  it,  and  the 
'  Hamlet '  of  1603  with  the  '  Hamlet '  of  1604,  and  with 
the  still  further  varied  version  of  the  play  given  by 
Heminge  and  Condell  in  the  Folio  of  1623.  Next  to 
Shakespeare  in  this  great  power  of  combining  the  forces 
of  the  two  great  classes  of  English  poets,  appealing  both 


294  '  The   Life   Poetic  ' 

to  the  commonplace  public  and  to  the  artistic  sense  of 
the  few,  stands,  perhaps,  Chaucer ;  but  since  Shake- 
speare's time  no  one  has  met  with  anything  like  Tenny- 
son's success  in  effecting  a  reconciliation  between  popular 
and  artistic  sympathy  with  poetry  in  England." 


Chapter  XVIII 

AMERICAN  FRIENDS  :  LOWELL,  BRET  HARTE, 
AND   OTHERS 

I  FEEL  that  my  hasty  notes  about  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's 
literary  friendships  would  be  incomplete  without  a 
word  or  two  upon  his  American  friends.  There  is  a  great 
deal  of  interest  in  the  story  of  the  first  meeting  between 
him  and  James  Russell  Lowell.  Shortly  after  Lowell  had 
accepted  the  post  of  American  Minister  in  England,  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  met  him  at  dinner.  During  the  dinner  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  was  somewhat  attracted  by  the  conver- 
sation of  a  gentleman  who  sat  next  to  him  but  one.  He 
observed  that  the  gentleman  seemed  to  talk  as  if  he  wished 
to  entice  him  into  the  conversation.  The  gentleman 
was  passing  severe  strictures  upon  English  writers — 
Dickens,  Thackeray,  and  others.  As  the  dinner  wore 
on,  his  conversation  left  literary  names  and  took  up  poli- 
tical ones,  and  he  was  equally  severe  upon  the  prominent 
political  figures  of  the  time,  and  also  upon  the  prominent 
political  men  of  the  previous  generation — Palmerston, 
Lord  John  Russell,  and  the  like.  Then  the  name  of  the 
Alabama  came  up  ;  the  gentleman  (whom  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  now  discovered  to  be  an  American),  dwelt 
with  much  emphasis  upon  the  iniquity  of  England  in 
letting  the  Alabama  escape.  This  diatribe  he  con- 
cluded thus :  '  You  know  we  owe  England  nothing.' 
In  saying  this  he  again  looked  at  Mr.  Watts-Dunton, 
manifestly  addressing  his  remarks  to  him. 


296  American   Friends 

These  attacks  upon  England  and  Englishmen  and 
everything  English  had  at  last  irritated  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton,  and  addressing  the  gentleman  for  the  first  time, 
he  said  :  "  Pardon  me,  sir,  but  there  you  are  wrong.  You 
owe  England  a  very  great  deal,  for  I  see  you  are  an 
American." 

"  What  do  we  owe  England  ?  "  said  the  gentleman, 
whom  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  now  began  to  realize  was  no 
other  than  the  newly  appointed  American  Minister. 

"  You  owe  England,"  he  said,  "  for  an  infinity  of  good 
feeling  which  you  are  trying  to  show  is  quite  unrecipro- 
cated by  Americans.  So  kind  is  the  feeling  of  English 
people  towards  Americans  that  socially,  so  far  as  the 
middle  classes  are  concerned,  they  have  an  immense 
advantage  over  English  people  themselves.  They  are 
petted  and  made  much  of,  until  at  last  it  has  come  to  this, 
that  the  very  fact  of  a  person's  being  American  is  a  letter 
of  introduction." 

Mr.  Watts-Dunton  spoke  with  such  emphasis,  and  his 
voice  is  so  penetrating,  that  those  on  the  opposite  side 
of  the  table  began  to  pause  in  their  conversation  to  listen 
to  it,  and  this  stopped  the  little  duel  between  the  two. 
After  the  ladies  had  retired,  Mr.  Lowell  drew  up  his 
chair  to  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  and  said  : 

"  You  were  very  sharp  upon  me  just  now,  sir." 

"  Not  in  the  least,"  said  Mr.  Watts-Dunton.  "  You 
were  making  an  onslaught  on  my  poor  little  island,  and 
you  really  seemed  as  though  you  were  addressing  your 
conversation  to  me." 

"  Well,"  repHed  Mr.  Lowell,  "  I  will  confess  that  I  did 
address  my  conversation  partially  to  you  ;  you  are,  I 
think,  Mr.  Theodore  Watts." 

"  That  is  my  little  name,"  said  Mr.  Watts-Dunton. 
"  But  I  really  don't  sec  why  that  should  induce  you  to 


Lowell  2  97 

address  your  conversation  to  me.  I  suppose  it  is  because 
absurd  paragraphs  have  often  appeared  in  the  American 
newspapers  stating  that  I  am  strongly  anti-American  in 
my  sympathies.  An  entire  mistake  !  I  have  several 
charming  American  friends,  and  I  am  a  great  admirer 
of  many  of  your  most  eminent  writers.  But  I  notice 
that  whensoever  an  American  book  is  severely  handled 
in  the  '  Athenaeum,'  the  article  is  attributed  to  me." 

"  I  do  not  think,"  said  Mr.  Lowell,  "  that  you  are  a 
lover  of  my  country,  but  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  attri- 
bute to  you  articles  that  you  never  wrote." 

And  he  then  drew  his  chair  nearer  to  his  interlocutor, 
and  became  more  confidential. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  "  I  will  tell  you  something  that,  I 
think,  will  not  be  altogether  unpleasant  to  you.  When  I 
came  to  take  up  my  permanent  residence  in  London  a 
short  time  ago,  I  was  talking  to  a  friend  of  mine  about 
London  and  Londoners,  and  I  said  to  him :  '  There  is 
one  man  whom  I  very  much  want  to  meet.'  '  You  ! '  said 
he,  '  why,  you  can  meet  anybody  from  the  royal 
family  downwards.  Who  is  the  man  you  want  to  meet  ?  ' 
*  It  is  a  man  in  the  literary  world,'  said  I,  '  and  I  have  no 
doubt  you  can  introduce  me  to  him.  It  is  the  writer  of 
the  chief  poetical  criticism  in  the  "  Athenaeum." '  My 
friend  laughed.  '  Well,  it  is  curious,'  he  replied : 
'  that  is  one  of  the  few  men  in  the  literary  world  I  can- 
not introduce  you  to.  I  scarcely  know  him,  and,  besides, 
not  long  ago  he  passed  strictures  on  my  writing  which 
I  don't  much  approve  of.'  Does  that  interest  you  ?  " 
added  Mr.  Lowell. 

"  Very  much,"  said  Mr.  Watts-Dunton. 

"  Would  it  interest  you  to  know  that  ever  since  your 
first  article  in  the  *  Athenaeum '  I  have  read  every  article 
you  have  written  ?  " 


298  American   Friends 

"  Very  much,"  said  Mr.  Watts-Dunton. 

"  Would  it  interest  you  to  know  that  on  reading  your 
first  article  I  said  to  a  friend  of  mine :  *  At  last  there  is  a 
new  voice  in  English  criticism  ? '  " 

"  Very  much,"  said  Mr.  Watts-Dunton.  "  But  you 
must  first  tell  me  what  that  article  was,  for  I  don't  be- 
lieve there  is  one  of  my  countrymen  who  could  do  so." 

"  That  article,"  said  Lowell,  "  was  an  essay  upon  the 
'  Comedy  of  the  Noctes  Ambrosianae,'  and  it  opened 
with  an  Oriental  anecdote." 

"  Well,"  said  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  "  that  does  interest 
me  very  much." 

"  And  I  will  go  further,"  said  Lowell :  "  every  line  you 
have  written  in  the  *  Athenaeum '  has  been  read  by  me, 
and  often  re-read." 

"  Well,"  said  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  "  I  confess  to  being 
amazed,  for  I  assure  you  that  in  my  own  country,  except 
within  a  narrow  circle  of  friends,  my  name  is  absolutely 
unknown.  And  I  must  add  that  I  feel  honoured, 
for  it  is  not  a  week  since  I  told  a  friend  that  I  have  a 
great  admiration  for  some  of  your  critical  essays.  But 
still,  I  don't  quite  forgive  you  for  your  onslaught  upon 
my  poor  little  island  !  My  sympathies  are  not  strongly 
John  Bullish,  and  they  tell  me  that  my  verses  are  more 
Celtic  than  Anglo-Saxon  in  temper.  But  I  am  some- 
what of  a  patriot,  in  my  way,  and  I  don't  quite  forgive 
you." 

The  meeting  ended  in  the  two  men  fraternizing  with 
each  other. 

"  Won't  you  come  to  see  me,"  said  Lowell,  "  at  the 
Embassy  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  where  it  is." 

"  Then  you  ought  to  know  !  "  said  Lowell.  "Another 
proof  of  the  stout  sufficiency  of  the  English  temper — 


Lowell  299 

not  to  know  where  the  American  Embassy  is  !  It  is  in 
Lowndes  Square."     Then  he  named  the  number. 

"  Why,"  said  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  "  that  is  next  door 
to  Miss  Swinburne,  aunt  of  the  poet,  a  perfectly  mar- 
vellous lady,  possessing  the  vitality  of  the  Swinburne 
family — a  lady  who  makes  watercolour  landscape  drawings 
in  the  open  air  at  I  don't  know  what  age  of  life — some- 
thing like  eighty.  She  was  a  friend  of  Turner's,  and  is 
the  possessor  of  some  of  Turner's  finest  works." 

"  So  you  actually  go  next  door,  and  don't  know  where 
the  American  Embassy  is  !  A  crowning  proof  of  the 
insolent  self-sufhciency  of  the  English  temper  !  How- 
ever, as  you  come  next  door,  won't  you  come  and  see 
me  ?  " 

"  I  shall  be  delighted,"  said  Mr.  Watts-Dunton ;  "  but 
I  am  perfectly  sure  you  can  spare  no  time  to  see  an  ob- 
scure literary  man." 

"  On  the  contrary,"  said  Lowell,  "  I  always  reserve 
to  myself  an  hour,  from  five  to  six,  when  I  see  nobody 
but  a  friend  over  a  cigarette." 

Some  time  after  this  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  did  call  on 
Lowell,  and  spent  an  hour  with  him  over  a  cigarette; 
and  at  last  it  became  an  institution,  this  hour  over  a  cigar- 
ette once  a  week. 

This  went  on  for  a  long  time,  and  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
is  fond  of  recalling  the  way  in  which  Lowell's  Anglo- 
phobia became  milder  and  milder,  ^  fine  by  degrees  and 
beautifully  less,'  until  at  last  it  entirely  vanished.  Then 
it  was  followed  by  something  like  Anglo-mania.  Lowell 
began  to  talk  with  the  greatest  appreciation  of  a  thou- 
sand English  institutions  and  ways  which  he  would 
formerly  have  deprecated.  The  climax  of  this  revolu- 
tion was  reached  when  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  said  to  him  : 

"  Lowell,  you  are  now  so  much  more  of  a  John  Bull 


300  American  Friends 

than  I  am  that  I  have  ceased  to  be  able  to  follow  you. 
The  English  ladies  are — let  us  say,  charming;  English 
gentlemen  are — let  us  say,  charming,  or  at  least  some  of 
them.  Everything  is  charming  !  But  there  is  one  thing 
you  cannot  say  a  word  for,  and  that  is  our  detestable 
climate." 

"  And  you  can  really  speak  thus  of  the  finest  climate 
in  the  world  !  "  said  Lowell.  "  I  positively  cannot  live 
out  of  it." 

"Well,"  said  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  "you  and  I  will 
cease  to  talk  about  England  and  John  Bull,  if  you  please. 
I  cannot  follow  you." 

In  relating  this  anecdote  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  how- 
ever, insisted  that  with  all  his  love  of  England,  Lowell 
never  bated  one  jot  of  his  loyalty  to  his  own  country. 
There  never  was  a  stauncher  American  than  James 
Russell  Lowell.  Let  one  unjust  word  be  said  about 
America,  and  he  was  a  changed  man.  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  has  always  contended  that  the  present  good 
feeling  between  the  two  great  branches  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race  was  due  mainly  to  Lowell.  Indeed,  he  ex- 
pressed this  conviction  in  one  of  his  finest  sonnets.  It 
appeared  in  the  '  Athenaeum  '  after  Lowell's  death,  and 
it  has  been  frequently  reprinted  in  the  United  States. 
It  now  appears  in  '  The  Coming  of  Love.'  It  was  ad- 
dressed '  To  Britain  and  America  :  On  the  Death  of 
James  Russell  Lowell,' 

Ye  twain  who  long  forgot  your  brotherhood 

And  those  far  fountains  whence,  through  glorious  years, 
Your  fathers  drew,  for  Freedom's  pioneers, 

Your  English  speech,  your  dower  of  English  blood — 

Ye  ask  to-day,  in  sorrow's  holiest  mood. 

When  all  save  love  seems  film — ye  ask  in  tears — 
'  How  shall  we  honour  him  whose  name  endears 

The  footprints  where  beloved  Lowell  stood  ? ' 


Whistler  301 

Your  hands  he  joined — those  fratricidal  hands, 
Once  trembling,  each,  to  seize  a  brother's  throat : 

How  shall  ye  honour  him  whose  spirit  stands 

Between  you  still  ? — Keep  Love's  bright  sails  afloat 
For  Lowell's  sake,  where  once  ye  strove  and  smote 

On  waves  that  must  unite,  not  part,  your  strands. 

This  perhaps  is  the  place  to  say  a  word  about  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton's  feelings  towards  America,  which  were 
once  supposed  to  be  hostile.  Apart  from  his  inti- 
macy with  Lowell,  he  numbered  among  his  American 
friends  Clarence  Stedman,  Mrs.  Moulton  (between 
whom  and  himself  there  has  been  the  most  cordial 
intimacy  during  twenty-five  years),  Bret  Harte,  Edwin 
Abbey,  Joaquin  Miller,  Colonel  Higginson,  and,  indeed, 
many  prominent  Americans.  Between  Whistler  and  him- 
self there  was  an  intimacy  so  close  that  during  several 
years  they  saw  each  other  nearly  every  day.  That  was 
before  Whistler's  genius  had  received  full  recognition. 
I  may  recall  that  during  a  certain  controversy  concern- 
ing Whistler's  animosity  against  the  Royal  Academy  the 
following  letter  from  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  appeared  in 
the  '  Times '  of  August  12,  1903  : — 

**Inthe  *  Times'  of  to-day  Mr.  G.  D.  Leslie,  R.A., 
says  :  *  I  was  on  friendly  terms  with  Whistler  for  nearly 
forty  years,  and  I  never  heard  him  at  any  time  testify 
animosity  against  the  Academy  or  its  members.' 

My  own  acquaintance  with  Whistler  did  not  extend 
over  forty  years,  but  for  about  ten  years  I  was  very 
intimate  with  him,  so  intimate  that  during  part  of  this 
period  we  met  almost  every  day.  Indeed,  at  one  time 
we  were  jointly  engaged  on  a  weekly  periodical  called 
'  Piccadilly,'  for  which  Du  Maurier  designed  the  cover, 
and  for  which  Whistler  furnished  his  very  first  litho- 


302  American  Friends 

graphs,  by  the  valuable  aid  of  Mr.  T.  Way.  During  that 
time  there  were  not  many  days  when  he  failed  to  *  testify 
animosity '  against  the  Academy  and  its  members.  To 
say  the  truth,  the  testifications  on  this  subject  by  'Jimmy,' 
as  he  was  then  called,  were  a  little  afflictive  to  his  friends. 
Whether  he  was  right  or  wrong  in  the  matter  is  a  point 
on  which  I  feel  unqualified  to  express  an  opinion. 

May  I  be  allowed  to  conclude  this  note  by  express- 
ing my  admiration  of  your  New  York  Correspondent's 
amazingly  vivid  portrait  of  one  of  the  most  vivid  per- 
sonalities  of  our  time  ?      It  is   a   masterpiece.  ..." 

When  Bret  Harte  died,  in  May  1902,  one  of  the 
best  and  most  appreciative  estimates  of  him  was  writ- 
ten by  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  for  the  '  Athenaeum.'  I 
am  tempted  to  quote  it  nearly  in  full,  as  it  shows  deep 
sympathy  with  American  literature,  and  it  will  prove 
more  conclusively  than  any  words  of  mine  how  warm 
are  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  feelings   towards  Americans  : — 

"  As  a  personality  Bret  Harte  seems  to  have  exercised 
a  great  charm  over  his  intimate  friends,  and  I  am  not  in 
the  least  surprised  at  his  being  a  favourite.  It  is  many 
years  since  I  last  saw  him.  I  think  it  must  have  been  at 
a  club  dinner  given  by  William  Black  ;  but  I  have  a 
very  vivid  remembrance  of  my  first  meeting  him,  which 
must  have  been  more  than  twenty-six  years  ago,  and  on 
that  occasion  it  occurred  to  me  that  he  had  great  latent 
histrionic  gifts,  and,  like  Charles  Dickens,  might  have 
been  an  admirable  actor.  On  that  account  the  following 
incident  is  worth  recording.  A  friend  of  mine,  an 
American  poet,  who  at  that  time  was  living  in  London, 
brought  him  to  my  chambers,  and  did  me  the  honour 
of  introducing  me  to  him.     Bret  Harte  had  read  some- 


Bret  Harte  303 

thing  about  the  London  music-halls,  and  proposed  that 
we  should  all  three  take  a  drive  round  the  town  and  see 
something  of  them.  At  that  time  these  places  took  a 
very  different  position  in  public  estimation  from  what 
they  appear  to  be  doing  now.  People  then  considered 
them  to  be  very  cockney,  very  vulgar,  and  very  inane, 
as,  indeed,  they  were,  and  were  shy  about  going  to  them. 
I  hope  they  have  improved  now,  for  they  seem  to  have 
become  quite  fashionable.  Our  first  visit  was  to  the 
Holborn  Music  Hall,  and  there  we  heard  one  or  two 
songs  that  gave  the  audience  immense  delight — some 
comic,  some  more  comic  from  being  sentimental- maudlin. 
And  we  saw  one  or  two  shapeless  women  in  tights. 
Then  we  went  to  the  '  Oxford,'  and  saw  something  on 
exactly  the  same  lines.  In  fact,  the  performers  seemed 
to  be  the  same  as  those  we  had  just  been  seeing.  Then 
we  went  to  other  places  of  the  same  kind,  and  Bret 
Harte  agreed  with  me  as  to  the  distressing  emptiness  of 
what  my  fellow-countrymen  and  women  seemed  to  be 
finding  so  amusing.  At  that  time,  indeed,  the  almost 
only  interesting  entertainment  outside  the  opera  and 
the  theatres  was  that  at  Evans's  supper-rooms,  where, 
under  the  auspices  of  the  famous  Paddy  Green,  one  could 
enjoy  a  Welsh  rarebit  while  listening  to  the  '  Chough 
and  Crow  '  and  '  The  Men  of  Harlech,'  given  admirably 
by  choir-boys.  Years  passed  before  I  saw  Bret  Harte 
again.  I  met  him  at  a  little  breakfast  party,  and  he 
amused  those  who  sat  near  him  by  giving  an  account  of 
what  he  had  seen  at  the  music-halls — an  account  so 
graphic  that  I  think  a  fine  actor  was  lost  in  him.  He 
not  only  vivified  every  incident,  but  gave  verbal  descrip- 
tions of  every  performer  in  a  peculiarly  quiet  way  that 
added  immensely  to  the  humour  of  it.  His  style  of  acting 
would  have  been  that  of  Jefferson  of  '  Rip  Van  Winkle  ' 


304  American  Friends 

fame.  This  proved  to  me  what  a  genius  he  had  for 
accurate  observation,  and  also  what  a  remarkable  memory 
for  the  details  of  a  scene.  His  death  has  touched  English 
people  very  deeply. 

It  is  easy  to  be  unjust  to  Bret  Harte — easy  to  say  that 
he  was  a  disciple  of  Dickens — easy  to  say  that  in  richness, 
massiveness,  and  variety  he  fell  far  short  of  his  great  and 
beloved  master.  No  one  was  so  ready  to  say  all  this  and 
more  about  Bret  Harte  as  Bret  Harte  himself.  For  of  all 
the  writers  of  his  time  he  was  perhaps  the  most  modest, 
the  most  unobtrusive,  the  most  anxious  to  give  honour 
where  he  believed  honour  to  be  due. 

But  the  comparison  between  the  English  and  American 
story-tellers  must  not  be  pushed  too  far  to  the  disadvan- 
tage of  the  latter.  If  Dickens  showed  great  superiority 
to  Bret  Harte  on  one  side  of  the  imaginative  writer's 
equipment,  there  were,  I  must  think,  other  sides  of  that 
equipment  on  which  the  superiority  was  Bret  Harte's. 

Therefore  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  think  that  in  a 
court  of  universal  criticism  Bret  Harte's  reputation  will 
be  found  to  be  of  the  usual  ephemeral  kind.  It  is,  of 
course,  impossible  to  speak  on  such  matters  with  any- 
thing like  confidence.  But  it  does  seem  to  me  that  Bret 
Harte's  reputation  is  more  likely  than  is  generally  sup- 
posed to  ripen  into  what  we  call  fame.  For  in  his  short 
stories — in  the  best  of  them,  at  least — there  is  a  certain 
note  quite  indescribable  by  any  adjective — a  note  which  is, 
I  believe,  always  to  be  felt  in  the  literature  that  survives. 
The  charge  of  not  being  original  is  far  too  frequently 
brought  against  the  imaginative  writers  of  America. 
What  do  we  mean  by  '  originality '  ?  Scott  did  not 
invent  the  historic  method.  Dickens  simply  carried  the 
method    of    Smollett    further,    and   with    wider  range. 


Bret  Harte  305 

Thackeray  is  admittedly  the  nineteenth  century  Field- 
ing. Perhaps,  indeed,  there  is  but  one  absolutely  ori- 
ginal writer  of  prose  fiction  of  the  nineteenth  century — 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne.  By  original  I  mean  simply 
original.  I  do  not  mean  that  he  was  the  greatest  imagi- 
native writer  of  his  epoch.  But  he  invented  a  new  kind 
of  fiction  altogether,  a  fiction  in  which  the  material  world 
and  the  spiritual  world  were  not  merely  brought  into 
touch,  but  were  positively  intermingled  one  with  the 
other. 

Bret  Harte  had  the  great  good  fortune  to  light  upon 
material  for  literary  treatment  of  a  peculiarly  fresh  and  a 
peculiarly  fascinating  kind,  and  he  had  the  artistic  in- 
stinct to  treat  it  adequately.  This  is  what  I  mean  :  in 
the  wonderful  history  of  the  nineteenth  century  there  are 
no  more  picturesque  figures  than  those  goldseekers — 
those  *  Argonauts '  of  the  Pacific  slope — who  in  1848 
and  1849  showed  the  world  what  grit  lies  latent  in  the 
racial  amalgam  we  agree  to  call  '  the  Anglo-Saxon  race.' 
The  Australian  gold-diggers  of  1851  who  followed  them, 
although  they  were  picturesque  and  sturdy  too,  were  not 
exactly  of  the  strain  of  the  original  Argonauts.  The 
romance  of  the  thing  had  been  in  some  degree  worn  away. 
The  land  of  the  Golden  Fleece  had  degenerated  into  a 
Tom  Tiddler's  Ground.  Moreover,  the  Tom  Tiddler's 
Grounds  of  Ballarat  and  Bendigo  were  at  a  comparatively 
easy  distance  from  the  Antipodean  centre  of  civilization. 
*  Canvas  Town  '  could  easily  be  reached  from  Sydney. 
But  to  reach  the  Golden  Fleece  sought  by  the  original 
Californian  Argonauts  the  adventurer  had  before  him  a 
journey  of  an  almost  unparalleled  kind.  Every  Argo- 
naut, indeed,  was  a  kind  of  explorer  as  well  as  seeker  of 
gold.  He  must  either  trek  overland — that  is  to  say,  over 
those  vast  prairies  and  then  over  those  vast  mountain 

w.-D.  20 


3o6  American  Friends 

chains  which  to  men  of  the  time  of  Fenimore  Cooper 
and  Dr.  Bird  made  up  the  limitless  '  far  West '  regions 
which  only  a  few  pioneers  had  dared  to  cross — or  else  he 
must  take  a  journey,  equally  perilous,  round  Cape  Horn 
in  the  first  crazy  vessel  in  which  he  could  get  a  passage. 
It  follows  that  for  an  adventurer  to  succeed  in  reaching 
the  land  of  the  Golden  Fleece  at  all  implied  in  itself  that 
grit  which  adventurers  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  type  are 
generally  supposed  to  show  in  a  special  degree.  What 
kind  of  men  these  Argonauts  were,  and  what  kind  of  life 
they  led,  the  people  of  the  Eastern  states  of  America  and 
the  people  of  England  had  for  years  been  trying  to  gather 
from  newspaper  reports  and  other  sources ;  but  had  it 
not  been  for  the  genius  of  Bret  Harte  this  most  pictur- 
esque chapter  of  nineteenth-century  history  would  have 
been  obliterated  and  forgotten.  Thanks  to  the  admir- 
able American  writer  whom  England  had  the  honour  and 
privilege  of  entertaining  for  so  many  years,  those  wonder- 
ful regions  and  those  wonderful  doings  in  the  Sierra 
Nevada  are  as  familiar  to  us  as  is  Dickens's  London. 
Surely  those  who  talk  of  Bret  Harte  as  being  '  Dickens 
among  the  Californian  pines '  do  not  consider  what  their 
words  imply.  It  is  true,  no  doubt,  that  there  was  a  kind 
of  kinship  between  the  temperament  of  Dickens  and  the 
temperament  of  Bret  Harte.  They  both  held  the  same 
principles  of  imaginative  art,  they  both  felt  that  the 
function  of  the  artist  is  to  aid  in  the  emancipation  of  man 
by  holding  before  him  beautiful  ideals ;  both  felt  that  to 
give  him  any  kind  of  so-called  realism  which  lowers  man 
in  his  aspirations — which  calls  before  man's  imagination 
degrading  pictures  of  his  '  animal  origin  ' — is  to  do  him 
a  disservice.  For  man  has  still  a  long  journey  before  he 
reaches  the  goal.  Yet  though  they  were  both  by  in- 
stinct idealists  as  regards  character-drawing,  they  bot 


Bret  Harte  307 

sought  to  give  their  ideals  a  local  habitation  and  a  name 
by  surrounding  those  ideals  with  vividly  painted  real 
accessories,  as  real  as  those  of  the  ugliest  realist. 

With  regard  to  Bret  Harte's  Argonauts  and  the 
romantic  scenery  in  which  they  lived  and  worked,  it 
would,  no  doubt,  be  a  bold  thing  to  say  whether  Dickens 
could  or  could  not  have  painted  them,  and  whether,  if  he 
had  painted  them,  the  pictures  would  or  would  not  have 
been  as  good  as  Bret  Harte's  pictures.  But  Dickens 
never  did  paint  these  Argonauts  ;  he  never  had  the 
chance  of  painting  them.  Bret  Harte  did  paint  them, 
and  succeeded  as  wonderfully  as  Dickens  succeeded  in 
painting  certain  classes  of  London  life.  Now,  assuredly, 
I  should  have  never  dreamt  of  instituting  a  comparison 
of  this  kind  between  two  of  the  most  delightful  writers 
and  the  most  delightful  men  that  have  lived  in  my  time 
had  not  critics  been  doing  so  to  the  disparagement  of  one 
of  them.  But  if  one  of  these  writers  must  be  set  up 
against  another,  I  feel  that  something  should  be  said  upon 
the  other  side  of  the  question — I  feel  that  something 
should  be  said  on  those  points  where  the  American  had 
the  advantage.  Take  the  question  of  atmosphere,  for 
instance.  Let  us  not  forget  how  enormously  important 
is  atmosphere  in  any  imaginative  picture  of  life.  With- 
out going  so  far  as  to  say  that  atmosphere  is  as  important, 
or  nearly  as  important,  as  character,  let  me  ask.  What  was 
it  that  captured  the  readers  of  '  Robinson  Crusoe  '  ? 
Was  it  the  character  of  Defoe's  hero,  or  was  it  the  scenery 
and  the  atmosphere  in  which  he  placed  him  ?  Again, 
see  what  an  important  part  scenery  and  atmosphere 
played  in  '  The  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,'  in  '  The  Lady 
of  the  Lake,'  in  '  Marmion,'  and  in  '  Waverley.'  And 
surely  it  was  the  atmosphere  of  Byron's  '  Giaour,'  '  The 
Bride  of  Abydos,'  and  '  The  Corsair,'  that  mainly  gave 


308  American   Friends 

these  poems  their  vogue.  And,  in  a  certain  sense,  it  may- 
be said  that  Dickens  gave  to  his  readers  a  new  atmo- 
sphere, for  he  was  the  first  to  explore  what  was  something 
new  to  the  reading  world — the  great  surging  low-life  of 
London  and  the  life  of  the  lower  stratum  of  its  middle 
class.  It  seems  that  the  pure  novelist  of  manners  only 
can  dispense  with  a  new  and  picturesque  atmosphere. 
It  was  natural  for  England  to  look  to  American  writers 
to  enrich  English  literature  with  a  new  imaginative 
atmosphere,  and  she  did  not  look  in  vain.  But,  notwith- 
standing all  that  had  been  done  by  writers  like  Brockden 
Brown,  Fenimore  Cooper,  Dr.  Bird,  and  others  to  bring 
American  atmosphere  into  literature,  Bret  Harte  gave 
us  an  atmosphere  that  was  American  and  yet  as  new  as 
though  the  above-mentioned  writers  had  never  written. 
He  had  the  advantage  of  depicting  a  scenery  that  was  as 
unlike  the  backwoods  of  his  predecessors  as  it  was  unlike 
everything  else  in  the  world.  It  is  doubtful  whether  there 
is  any  scenery  in  the  world  so  fascinating  as  the  mountain 
ranges  of  the  Pacific  side  of  the  United  States  and  Canada. 
Every  one  is  born  with  an  instinct  for  loving  some 
particular  kind  of  scenery,  and  this  bias  has  not  so  much 
to  do  with  the  birth-environment  as  is  generally  sup- 
posed. It  would  have  been  of  no  avail  for  Bret  Harte 
to  be  familiar  with  the  mighty  canons,  peaks,  and  cata- 
racts of  the  Nevada  regions  unless  he  had  had  a  natural 
genius  for  loving  and  depicting  them  ;  and  this,  un- 
doubtedly, he  had,  as  we  see  by  the  effect  upon  us  of  his 
descriptions.  Once  read,  his  pictures  are  never  forgotten. 
But  it  was  not  merely  that  the  scenery  and  atmosphere 
of  Bret  Harte's  stories  are  new — the  point  is  that  the 
social  mechanism  in  which  his  characters  move  is  also 
new.  And  if  it  cannot  be  denied  that  in  temperament 
his  characters  are  allied  to  the  characters  of  Dickens,  we 


Bret  Harte  309 

must  not  make  too  much  of  this.  Notwithstanding  all 
the  freshness  and  newness  of  Dickens's  characters  they 
were  entirely  the  slaves  of  English  sanctions.  Those  in- 
congruities which  gave  them  their  humourous  side  arose 
from  their  contradicting  the  English  social  sanctions 
around  them.  But  in  Bret  Harte's  Argonauts  we  get 
characters  that  move  entirely  outside  those  sanctions  of 
civilization  with  which  the  reader  is  familiar.  And  this 
is  why  the  violent  contrasts  in  his  stories  seem,  somehow, 
to  be  better  authenticated  than  do  the  equally  violent 
contrasts  in  Dickens's  stories.  Bret  Harte's  characters 
are  amenable  to  no  laws  except  the  improvised  laws  of 
the  camp  ;  and  the  final  arbiter  is  either  the  six-shooter 
or  the  rope  of  Judge  Lynch.  And  yet  underlying  this 
apparent  lawlessness  there  is  that  deep  *  law-abidingness  ' 
which  the  late  Grant  Allen  despised  as  being  '  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  characteristic'  To  my  mind,  indeed,  there  is 
nothing  so  new,  fresh,  and  piquant  in  the  fiction  of  my 
time  as  Bret  Harte's  pictures  of  the  mixed  race  we  call 
Anglo-Saxon  finding  itself  right  outside  all  the  old  sanc- 
tions, exercising  nevertheless  its  own  peculiar  instinct 
for  law-abidingness  of  a  kind. 

We  get  the  Anglo-Saxon  beginning  life  anew  far  re- 
moved from  the  old  sanctions  of  civilization,  retaining 
of  necessity  a  good  deal  of  that  natural  liberty  which, 
according  to  Blackstone,  was  surrendered  by  the  first 
human  compact  in  order  to  secure  its  substitute,  civil 
liberty.  We  get  vivid  pictures  of  the  racial  qualities 
which  enable  the  Anglo-Saxon  to  plant  his  roots  and 
flourish  in  almost  every  square  mile  of  the  New  World 
that  lies  in  the  temperate  zone.  Let  a  group  of  this 
great  race  of  universal  squatters  be  the  dwellers  in  Roar- 
ing Camp,  or  a  party  of  whalers  in  New  Zealand  when  it 
is  a  '  no  man's  land,'  or  even  a  gang  of  mutineers  from 


3IO  American   Friends 

the  Bounty,  it  is  all  one  as  regards  their  methods  as 
squatters.  The  moment  that  the  mutineers  set  foot  on 
Pitcairn  Island  they  improvise  a  code  of  laws  something 
like  the  camp  laws  of  Bret  Harte's  Argonauts,  and  the 
code  on  the  whole  works  well. 

Therefore  I  think  that,  apart  altogether  from  the 
literary  excellence  of  the  presentation,  Bret  Harte's  pic- 
tures of  the  Anglo-Saxon  in  these  conditions  will,  even 
as  documents,  pass  into  literature.  And  again,  year  by 
year,  as  nature  is  being  more  and  more  studied,  are  what 
I  may  call  the  open-air  qualities  of  literature  being  more 
sought  after.  This  accounts  in  a  large  measure  for  the 
growing  interest  in  a  writer  once  strangely  neglected, 
George  Borrow  ;  and  if  there  should  be  any  diminution 
in  the  great  and  deserved  vogue  of  Dickens,  it  will  be 
because  he  is  not  strong  in  open-air  qualities. 

Bret  Harte's  stories  give  the  reader  a  sense  of  the 
open  air  second  only  to  Borrow's  own  pictures.  And  if 
I  am  right  in  thinking  that  the  love  of  nature  and  the 
love  of  open-air  life  are  growing,  this  also  will  secure  a 
place  in  the  future  for  Bret  Harte. 

And  now  what  about  his  power  of  creating  new 
characters — not  characters  of  the  soil  merely,  but  dra- 
matic characters  ?  Well,  here  one  cannot  speak  with 
quite  so  much  confidence  on  behalf  of  Bret  Harte  ;  and 
here  he  showed  his  great  inferiority  to  Dickens.  Dickens, 
of  course,  used  a  larger  canvas — gave  himself  more  room 
to  depict  his  subjects. 

If  Bret  Harte's  scenes  and  characters  seem  somewhat 
artificial,  may  it  not  be  often  accounted  for  by  the  fact 
that  he  wrote  short  stories  and  not  long  novels  ?  For 
it  is  very  difficult  in  a  short  story  to  secure  the  freedom 
and  flexibility  of  movement  which  belong  to  nature — 
the  last  perfection  of  imaginative  art. 


Bret  Harte  3 1 1 

All  artistic  imitations  of  nature,  of  course,  consist 
of  selection.  In  actual  life  we  form  our  own  picture  of 
a  character  not  by  having  the  traits  selected  for  us  and 
presented  to  us  in  a  salient  way,  as  in  art,  but  by  selecting 
in  a  semi-conscious  way  for  ourselves  from  the  great 
mass  of  characteristics  presented  to  us  by  nature.  The 
shorter  the  story,  the  more  economic  must  be  its  methods, 
and  hence  the  more  rigid  must  its  selection  of  character- 
istics be  ;  and  this,  of  course,  is  apt  to  give  an  air  of 
artificiality  to  a  short  story  from  which  a  long  novel  may 
be  free." 


Chapter  XIX 

WALES 

IT  is  impossible  within  the  space  at  my  command  to 
follow  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  into  Wales,  or  through 
those  Continental  journeys  described  by  Dr.  Hake  in  *The 
New  Day.'  I  can  best  show  the  impression  that  Alpine 
scenery  made  upon  him  by  quoting  further  on  the  end  of 
*  The  Coming  of  Love.'  But  with  regard  to  Wales,  it 
seems  necessary  that  a  word  or  two  should  be  said,  for  it 
is  a  fact  that  the  Welsh  nation  has  accepted  '  Aylwin  ' 
as  the  representative  Welsh  novel.  And  this  is  not  sur- 
prising, because,  as  many  Welsh  writers  have  averred, 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  passionate  sympathy  for  Wales  is  as 
sincere  as  though  he  had  been  born  upon  her  soil.  The 
'  Arvon  '  edition  is  thus  dedicated  : — 

"  To  Ernest  Rhys,  poet  and  romancist,  and  my  very 
dear  friend,  this  edition  of  '  Aylwin  '  is  affectionately 
inscribed. 

It  was  as  far  back  as  those  summer  days  when  you 
used  to  read  the  proofs  of  '  Aylwin  ' — used  to  read  them 
in  the  beautiful  land  the  story  endeavours  to  depict — 
that  the  wish  came  to  me  to  inscribe  it  to  you,  whose 
paraphrases  of  '  The  Lament  of  Llywarch  Hen,'  *  The 
Lament  of  Urien,'  and  *  The  Song  of  the  Graves  '  have 
so  entirely  caught  the  old  music  of  Kymric  romance. 

When  I  described  my  Welsh  heroine  as  showing 
that  '  love  of  the  wind  '  which  is  such  a  fascinating  char- 


The   Kymric  Note  in   Aylwin  313 

acteristic  of  the  Snowdonian  girls  I  had  only  to  recall 
that  poetic  triumph,  your  paraphrase  of  Taliesin's  *  Song 
of  the  Wind '— 

Oh,  most  beautiful  One ! 
In  the  wood  and  in  the  mead, 
How  he  fares  in  his  speed ! 
And  over  the  land, 
Without  foot,  without  hand. 
Without  fear  of  old  age, 
Or  Destiny's  rage. 


His  banner  he  flings 
O'er  the  earth  as  he  springs 
On  his  way,  but  unseen 
Are  its  folds ;    and  his  mien, 
Rough  or  fair,  is  not  shown, 
And  his  face  is  unknown. 

Had  I  anticipated  that  *  Aylwin '  would  achieve  a 
great  success  among  the  very  people  for  whom  I  wrote 
it,  I  should  without  hesitation  have  asked  you  to  accept 
the  dedication  at  that  time.  But  I  felt  that  it  would 
seem  like  endeavouring  to  take  a  worldly  advantage  of 
your  friendship  to  ask  your  permission  to  do  this — to 
ask  you  to  stand  literary  sponsor,  as  it  were,  to  a  story 
depicting  Wales  and  the  great  Kymric  race  with  which 
the  name  of  Rhys  is  so  memorably  and  so  grandly  associ- 
ated. For  although  my  heart  had  the  true  '  Kymric 
beat ' — if  love  of  Wales  may  be  taken  as  an  indication  of 
that  '  beat ' — the  privilege  of  having  been  born  on  the 
sacred  soil  of  the  Druids  could  not  be  claimed  by  me, 
and  I  feared  that  in  the  vital  presentation  of  that  organic 
detail,  which  is  the  first  requisite  in  all  true  imaginative 
art,  I  might  in  some  degree  be  found  wanting.  You 
yourself  always  prophesied,  I  remember,  that  '  Aylwin  ' 


314  Wales 

would  win  the  hearts  of  your  countrymen  and  country- 
women ;  but  I  knew  your  generous  nature  ;  I  knew  also 
if  I  may  say  it,  your  affection  for  me.  How  could  I  then 
help  feeling  that  the  kind  wish  was  father  to  the  kind 
thought  ? 

But  now  that  your  prophecies  have  come  true,  now 
that  there  is,  if  I  am  to  accept  the  words  of  another 
Welsh  writer,  '  scarcely  any  home  in  Wales  where  a  well- 
thumbed  copy  of  "  Aylwin  "  is  not  to  be  found,'  and  now 
that  thousands  of  Welsh  women  and  Welsh  girls  have 
read,  and,  as  I  know  by  letters  from  strangers,  have  smiled 
and  wept  over  the  story  of  their  countrywoman,  Winifred 
Wynne,  I  feel  that  the  time  has  come  when  I  may  look 
for  the  pleasure  of  associating  your  name  with  the 
book. 

Sometimes  I  have  been  asked  whether  Winifred 
Wynne  is  not  an  idealised  Welsh  girl ;  but  never  by  you, 
who  know  the  characteristics  of  the  race  to  which  you 
belong — know  it  far  too  well  to  dream  of  asking  that 
question.  There  are  not  many  people,  I  think,  who  know 
the  Kymric  race  so  intimately  as  I  do  ;  and  I  have  said 
on  a  previous  occasion  what  I  fully  meant  and  mean, 
that,  although  I  have  seen  a  good  deal  of  the  races  of 
Europe,  I  put  the  Kymric  race  in  many  ways  at  the  top 
of  them  all.  They  combine,  as  I  think,  the  poetry,  the 
music,  the  instinctive  love  of  the  fine  arts,  and  the  humour 
of  the  other  Celtic  peoples  with  the  practicalness  and 
bright-eyed  sagacity  of  the  very  different  race  to  which 
they  are  so  closely  linked  by  circumstance — the  race 
whom  it  is  the  fashion  to  call  the  Anglo-Saxon.  And 
as  to  the  charm  of  the  Welsh  girls,  no  one  who  knows 
them  as  you  and  I  do  can  fail  to  be  struck  by  it  contin- 
ually. Winifred  Wynne  I  meant  to  be  the  typical  Welsh 
girl  as  I  have  found  her — affectionate,  warm-hearted, 


Route  of  Aylwin  and  Sinfi  Lovell         3 1 5 

self-sacrificing,  and  brave.  And  I  only  wish  that  my 
power  to  do  justice  to  her  and  to  the  country  that  gave 
her  birth  had  been  more  adequate.  There  are,  however, 
writers  now  among  you  whose  pictures  of  Welsh  scenery 
and  Welsh  life  can  hold  their  own  with  almost  anything 
in  contemporary  fiction  ;  and  to  them  I  look  for  better 
work  than  mine  in  the  same  rich  field.  Although  I  am 
familiar  with  the  Alps  and  the  other  mountain  ranges  of 
Europe,  in  their  wildest  and  most  beautiful  recesses,  no 
hill  scenery  has  for  me  the  peculiar  witchery  of  that 
around  Eryri.  And  what  race  in  Europe  has  a  history 
so  poetic,  so  romantic,  and  so  pathetic  as  yours  ?  That 
such  a  country,  so  beautiful  in  every  aspect,  and  sur- 
rounded by  such  an  atmosphere  of  poetry,  will  soon  give 
birth  to  its  Walter  Scott  is  with  me  a  matter  of  fervid 
faith." 

As  to  the  descriptions  of  North  Wales  in  '  Aylwin,' 
they  are  now  almost  classic  ;  especially  the  descriptions 
of  the  Swallow  Falls  and  the  Fairy  Glen.  Long  before 
'  Aylwin  '  was  published,  Welsh  readers  had  been  de- 
lighted with  the  *  Athenaeum '  article  containing  the 
description  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  and  Sinfi  Lovell 
walking  up  the  Capel  Curig  side  of  Snowdon  at  break 
of  day. 

Fine  as  is  that  description  of  a  morning  on  Snowdon,  it 
is  not  finer  than  the  description  of  a  Snowdon  sunset, 
which  forms  the  nobly  symbolic  conclusion  of  '  Ayl- 
win '  : — 

"  We  were  now  at  the  famous  spot  where  the  triple 
echo  is  best  heard,  and  we  began  to  shout  like  two  chil- 
dren in  the  direction  of  Llyn  Ddu'r  Arddu.  And  then 
our  talk  naturally  fell  on  Knockers'  Llyn  and  the  echoes 


3 1 6  Wales 

to  be  heard  there.  She  then  took  me  to  another  famous 
sight  on  this  side  of  Snowdon,  the  enormous  stone,  said 
to  be  five  thousand  tons  in  weight,  called  the  Knockers' 
Anvil.  While  we  lingered  here  Winnie  gave  me  as  many- 
anecdotes  and  legends  of  this  stone  as  would  fill  a  little 
volume.     But  suddenly  she  stopped. 

*  Look  !  '  she  said,  pointing  to  the  sunset.  '  I  have 
seen  that  sight  only  once  before.  I  was  with  Sinfi.  She 
called  it  "  The  Dukkeripen  of  the  Trushul."  ' 

The  sun  was  now  on  the  point  of  sinking,  and  his 
radiance,  falling  on  the  cloud-pageantry  of  the  zenith, 
fired  the  flakes  and  vapoury  films  floating  and  trailing 
above,  turning  them  at  first  into  a  ruby-coloured  mass, 
and  then  into  an  ocean  of  rosy  fire.  A  horizontal  bar 
of  cloud  which,  until  the  radiance  of  the  sunset  fell  upon 
it,  had  been  dull  and  dark  and  grey,  as  though  a  long 
slip  from  the  slate  quarries  had  been  laid  across  the  west, 
became  for  a  moment  a  deep  lavender  colour,  and  then 
purple,  and  then  red-gold.  But  what  Winnie  was  point- 
ing at  was  a  dazzling  shaft  of  quivering  fire  where  the 
sun  had  now  sunk  behind  the  horizon.  Shooting  up 
from  the  cliffs  where  the  sun  had  disappeared,  this  shaft 
intersected  the  bar  of  clouds  and  seemed  to  make  an 
irregular  cross  of  deep  rose." 

It  is  no  wonder,  therefore,  that  the  path  Henry 
Aylwin  and  Sinfi  Lovell  took  on  the  morning  when  the 
search  for  Winifred  began  was  a  source  of  speculation, 
notably  in  '  Notes  and  Queries.'  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
deals  with  this  point  in  the  preface  to  the  twenty- 
second  edition  : — 

"  Nothing,"  he  says,  "  in  regard  to  '  Aylwin  '  has  given 
me  so  much  pleasure  as  the  way  in  which  it  has  been  re- 


Llyn   Coblynau  317 

ceived  both  by  my  Welsh  friends  and  my  Romany  friends. 
I  little  thought,  when  I  wrote  it,  that  within  three  years 
of  its  publication  the  gypsy  pictures  in  it  would  be  dis- 
coursed upon  to  audiences  of  4,000  people  by  a  man  so 
well  equipped  to  express  an  opinion  on  such  a  subject 
as  the  eloquent  and  famous  '  Gypsy  Smith,'  and  described 
by  him  as  '  the  most  trustworthy  picture  of  Romany  life 
in  the  English  language,  containing  in  Sinfi  Lovell  the 
truest  representative  of  the  Gypsy  girl.' 

Since  the  first  appearance  of  the  book  there  have 
been  many  interesting  discussions  by  Welsh  readers,  in 
various  periodicals,  upon  the  path  taken  by  Sinfi  Lovell 
and  Aylwin  in  their  ascent  of  Snowdon. 

A  very  picturesque  letter  appeared  in  '  Notes  and 
Queries '  on  May  3,  1902,  signed  C.  C.  B.,  in  answer  to 
a  query  by  E.  W.,  which  I  will  give  myself  the  pleasure 
of  quoting  because  it  describes  the  writer's  ascent  of 
Snowdon  (accompanied  by  a  son  of  my  old  friend,  Harry 
Owen,  late  of  Pen-y-Gwryd)  along  a  path  which  was 
almost  the  same  as  that  taken  by  Aylmin  and  Sinfi  Lovell, 
when  he  saw  the  same  magnificent  spectacle  that  was 
seen  by  them  : — 

'  The  mist  was  then  clearing  (it  was  in  July)  and  in  a 
few  moments  was  entirely  gone.  So  marvellous  a  trans- 
formation scene,  and  so  immense  a  prospect,  I  have  never 
beheld  since.  For  the  first  and  only  time  in  my  life  I 
saw  from  one  spot  almost  the  whole  of  North  and  Mid- 
Wales,  a  good  part  of  Western  England,  and  a  glimpse 
of  Scotland  and  Ireland.  The  vision  faded  all  too  quickly, 
but  it  was  worth  walking  thirty-three  or  thiry-four  miles, 
as  I  did  that  day,  for  even  a  briefer  view  than  that.' 

Referring  to  Llyn  Coblynau,  this  interesting  writer 
says  : — 

'  Only  from  Glaslyn  would   the   description  in  "  Ayl- 


3 1 8  Wales 

win  "  of  y  Wyddfa  standing  out  against  the  sky  "  as 
narrow  and  as  steep  as  the  sides  of  an  acorn  "  be  correct, 
but  from  the  north  and  north-west  sides  of  Glaslyn  this 
answers  with  quite  curious  exactness  to  the  appearance 
of  the  mountain.  We  must  suppose  the  action  of  the 
story  to  have  taken  place  before  the  revival  of  the  copper- 
mining  industry  on  Snowdon.' 

With  regard,  however,  to  the  question  here  raised,  I 
can  save  myself  all  trouble  by  simply  quoting  the  admir- 
able remarks  of  Sion  o  Ddyli  in  the  same  number  of 
*  Notes  and  Queries '  : — 

*  None  of  us  are  very  likely  to  succeed  in  "  placing  " 
this  Uyn,  because  the  author  of  "  Aylwin,"  taking  a  privi- 
lege of  romance  often  taken  by  Sir  Walter  Scott  before 
him,  probably  changed  the  landmarks  in  idealising  the 
scene  and  adapting  it  to  his  story.  It  may  be,  indeed, 
that  the  Welsh  name  given  to  the  llyn  in  the  book  is 
merely  a  rough  translation  of  the  gipsies'  name  for  it,  the 
"  Knockers "  being  gnomes  or  goblins  of  the  mine  ; 
hence  "  Coblynau  " — goblins.  If  so,  the  name  itself  can 
give  us  no  clue  unless  we  are  lucky  enough  to  secure  the 
last  of  the  Welsh  gipsies  for  a  guide.  In  any  case,  the 
only  point  from  which  to  explore  Snowdon  for  the  small 
llyn,  or  perhaps  llyns  (of  which  Llyn  Coblynau  is  a  kind 
of  composite  ideal  picture),  is  no  doubt,  as  E.  W.  has 
suggested,  Capel  Curig  ;  and  I  imagine  the  actual  scene 
lies  about  a  mile  south  from  Glaslyn,  while  it  owes  some- 
thing at  least  of  its  colouring  in  the  book  to  that  strange 
lake.  The  "  Knockers,"  it  must  be  remembered,  usually 
depend  upon  the  existence  of  a  mine  near  by,  with  old 
partly  fallen  mine-workings  where  the  dropping  of  water 
or  other  subterranean  noises  produce  the  curious  pheno- 
menon which  is  turned  to  such  imaginative  account  in 
the  Snowdon  chapters  of  "  Aylwin."  ' " 


A  Kymric  Child  319 

In  '  Aylwin '  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  is  fond  of  giving  his 
readers  little  pictorial  glimpses  of  Welsh  life  : — 

"The  peasants  and  farmers  all  knew  me.  '  Sut  mae 
dy  galon  ?  (How  is  thy  heart  ?)  '  they  would  say  in  the 
beautiful  Welsh  phrase  as  I  met  them.  '  How  is  my 
heart,  indeed  !  '  I  would  sigh  as  I  went  on  my  way. 

Before  I  went  to  Wales  in  search  of  Winifred  I  had 
never  set  foot  in  the  Principality.  Before  I  left  it  there 
was  scarcely  a  Welshman  who  knew  more  familiarly  than 
I  every  mile  of  the  Snowdonian  country.  Never  a  trace 
of  Winifred  could  I  find. 

At  the  end  of  the  autumn  I  left  the  cottage  and  re- 
moved to  Pen-y-Gwryd,  as  a  comparatively  easy  point 
from  which  I  could  reach  the  mountain  Uyn  where  I 
had  breakfasted  with  Winifred  on  that  morning. " 

His  intense  affection  for  Welsh  characteristics  is  seen  in 
the  following  description  of  the  little  Welsh  girl  and  her 
fascinating  lisp  : — 

"  '  Would  you  like  to  come  in  our  garden  ?  It's  such 
a  nice  garden.' 

I  could  resist  her  no  longer.  That  voice  would  have 
drawn  me  had  she  spoken  in  the  language  of  the  Toltecs 
or  the  lost  Zamzummin.  To  describe  it  would  of  course 
be  impossible.  The  novelty  of  her  accent,  the  way  in 
which  she  gave  the  '  h '  in  '  which,'  '  what,'  and 
*  when,'  the  Welsh  rhythm  of  her  intonation,  were  as 
bewitching  to  me  as  the  timbre  of  her  voice.  And  let 
me  say  here,  once  for  all,  that  when  I  sat  down  to  write 
this  narrative,  I  determined  to  give  the  English  reader 
some  idea  of  the  way  in  which,  whenever  her  emotions 
were  deeply  touched,  her  talk  would  run  into  soft  Welsh 


320  Wales 

diminutives ;  but  I  soon  abandoned  the  attempt  in  de- 
spair. I  found  that  to  use  colloquial  Welsh  with  effect 
in  an  English  context  is  impossible  without  wearying 
English  readers  and  disappointing  Welsh  ones. 

Here,  indeed,  is  one  of  the  great  disadvantages  under 
which  this  book  will  go  out  to  the  world.  While  a  story- 
teller may  reproduce,  by  means  of  orthographical  devices, 
something  of  the  effect  of  Scottish  accent,  Irish  accent, 
or  Manx  accent,  such  devices  are  powerless  to  represent 
Welsh  accent." 


Chapter    XX 

IMAGINATIVE    AND    DIDACTIC   PROSE 

BUT  the  interesting  subjects  touched  upon  in  the 
last  four  chapters  have  led  me  far  from  the  subject 
of  '  The  Renascence  of  Wonder.'  In  its  biographical 
sketch  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  the  *  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica  '  says :  "  Imaginative  glamour  and  mysticism 
are  prominent  characteristics  both  of  '  The  Coming 
of  Love  '  and  '  Aylwin,'  and  the?  novel  in  particular 
has  had  its  share  in  restoring  the  charms  of  pure 
romance  to  the  favour  of  the  general  public." 
This  is  high  praise,  but  I  hope  to  show  that  it  is 
deserved.  When  it  was  announced  that  a  work  of 
prose  fiction  was  about  to  be  published  by  the  critic 
of  the  '  Athenaeum,'  what  did  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's 
readers  1  expect  ?  I  think  they  expected  something  as 
unlike  what  the  story  turned  out  to  be  as  it  is  possible  to 
imagine.  They  expected  a  story  built  up  of  a  discursive 
sequence  of  new  and  profound  generalizations  upon  life 
and  literature  expressed  in  brilliant  picturesque  prose 
such  as  had  been  the  delight  of  my  boyhood  in  Ireland  ; 
they  expected  to  be  fascinated  more  than  ever  by  that 
'  easy  authoritative  greatness  and  comprehensiveness  of 
style '  with  which  they  had  been  familiar  for  long  ;  they 
expected  also  that  subtle  irony  after  the  fashion  of 
Fielding,  which  suggests  so  much  between  the  lines, 
that  humour  which  had  been  an  especial  joy  to  me  in 

W.-D.  ^^^  21 


322  Imaginative  and   Didactic   Prose 

scores  of  articles  signed  by  the  writer's  style  as  indubitably 
as  if  they  had  been  signed  by  his  name.  I  think 
everybody  cherished  this  expectation  :  everybody  took 
it  for  granted  that  heaps  of  those  *  intellectual  nuggets ' 
about  which  Minto  talked  would  smother  the  writer  as 
a  story-teller,  that  the  book  as  literature  would  be  ad- 
mirable— but  as  a  novel  a  failure.  Great  as  was  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton's  esoteric  reputation,  I  believe  that  many 
of  the  booksellers  declined  (as  the  author  had  prophesied 
that  they  would  decline)  to  subscribe  for  the  book.  They 
expected  it  to  fail  as  a  marketable  novel — to  fail  in  that 
*  artistic  convincement '  of  which  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
has  himself  so  often  written.  What  neither  I  nor  any 
one  else  save  those  who,  like  Mr.  Swinburne,  had  read  the 
story  in  manuscript,  did  expect,  was  a  story  so  poetic, 
so  unworldly,  and  so  romantic  that  it  might  have  been 
written  by  a  young  Celt — a  love  story  of  intense  pas- 
sion, which  yet  by  some  magic  art  was  as  convincingly 
realistic  as  any  one  of  those  '  flat-footed '  sermon- 
stories  which  the  late  W.  E.  Henley  was  wont  to  deride. 
In  fact,  from  this  point  of  view  *  Aylwin  '  is  a  curiosity 
of  literature.  The  truth  seems  to  be,  however,  that,  as 
one  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  most  intimate  friends  has 
said,  its  style  represents  one  facet  only  of  .  Watts- 
Dunton's  character.  Like  most  of  us,  he  has  a  dual 
existence — one  half  of  him  is  the  romantic  youth,  Henry 
Aylwin,  the  other  half  is  the  world-wise  philosopher  of 
the  '  Athenseum.'  This  other  half  of  him  lives  in  the 
style  of  another  story  altogether,  where  the  creator  of 
Henry  Aylwin  takes  up  the  very  different  role  of  a  man 
of  the  world.  Now  I  have  views  of  my  own  upon  this 
duality.  I  think  that  if  the  brilliant  worldly  writing 
of  the  mass  of  his  work  be  examined,  it  will  be  found 
to  be  a  *  shot '   texture  scintillating  with  various   hues 


Poetic  Style  of  the  Critic  323 

where  sometimes  repressed  passion  and  sometimes 
mysticism  and  dreams  are  constantly  shining  through  the 
glossy  silk  of  the  style.  Sometimes  from  the  smooth, 
even  flow  of  the  criticisms  gleams  of  a  passion  far  more 
intense  than  anything  in  '  Aylwin  '  will  flash  out.  I 
will  cite  a  passage  in  his  critical  writings  wherein  he 
discusses  the  inadequacy  of  language  to  express  the 
deepest  passion  : — 

"  As  compared  with  sculpture  and  painting  the  great 
infirmity  of  poetry,  as  an  '  imitation  '  of  nature,  is  of 
course  that  the  medium  is  always  and  of  necessity  words 
— even  when  no  words  could,  in  the  dramatic  situation, 
have  been  spoken.  It  is  not  only  Homer  who  is  obliged 
sometimes  to  forget  that  passion  when  at  white  heat  is 
never  voluble,  is  scarcely  even  articulate  ;  the  dramatists 
also  are  obliged  to  forget  that  in  love  and  in  hate,  at 
their  tensest,  words  seem  weak  and  foolish  when  compared 
with  the  silent  and  satisfying  triumph  and  glory  of  deeds, 
such  as  the  plastic  arts  can  render.  This  becomes  mani- 
fest enough  when  we  compare  the  Niobe  group  or  the 
Laocoon  group,  or  the  great  dramatic  paintings  of  the 
modern  world,  with  even  the  finest  efforts  of  dramatic 
poetry,  such  as  the  speech  of  Andromache  to  Hector,  or 
the  speech  of  Priam  to  Achilles ;  nay,  such  as  even  the 
cries  of  Cassandra  in  the  '  Agamemnon,'  or  the  wailings 
of  Lear  over  the  dead  Cordelia.  Even  when  writing  the 
words  uttered  by  Qidipus,  as  the  terrible  truth  breaks  in 
upon  his  soul,  Sophocles  must  have  felt  that,  in  the 
holiest  chambers  of  sorrow  and  in  the  highest  agonies 
of  suffering  reigns  that  awful  silence  which  not  poetry, 
but  painting  sometimes,  and  sculpture  always,  can  render. 
What  human  sounds  could  render  the  agony  of  Niobe, 
or  the  agony  of  Laocoon,  as  we  see  them  in  the  sculptor's 


324  Imaginative  and  Didactic  Prose 

rendering  ?  Not  articulate  speech  at  all ;  not  words, 
but  wails.  It  is  the  same  with  hate  ;  it  is  the  same  with 
love.  We  are  not  speaking  merely  of  the  unpacking  of 
the  heart  in  which  the  angry  warriors  of  the  '  Ilaid  ' 
indulge.  Even  such  subtle  writing  as  that  of  ^Eschylus 
and  Sophocles  falls  below  the  work  of  the  painter.  Hate, 
though  voluble  perhaps  as  Clytaemnestra's  when  hate  is 
at  that  red-heat  glow  which  the  poet  can  render,  changes 
in  a  moment  whenever  that  redness  has  been  fanned 
into  hatred's  own  last  complexion — whiteness  as  of  iron 
at  the  melting-point — when  the  heart  has  grown  far 
too  big  to  be  '  unpacked  '  at  all,  and  even  the  bitter 
epigrams  of  hate's  own  rhetoric,  though  brief  as  the 
terrier's  snap  before  he  fleshes  his  teeth,  or  as  the  short 
snarl  of  the  tigress  as  she  springs  before  her  cubs  in 
danger,  are  all  too  slow  and  sluggish  for  a  soul  to  which 
language  at  its  tensest  has  become  idle  play.  But  this 
is  just  what  cannot  be  rendered  by  an  art  whose  medium 
consists  solely  of  words." 

Could  any  one  reading  this  passage  doubt  that  the  real 
work  of  the  writer  was  to  write  poetry  and  not  criticism  ? 

But  this  makes  it  necessary  for  me  to  say  a  word  upon 
the  question  of  the  style  of  '  Aylwin  ' — a  question  that 
has  often  been  discussed.  The  fascination  of  the  story 
is  largely  due  to  the  magnetism  of  its  style.  And  yet  how 
undecorated,  not  to  say  how  plain,  the  style  in  the  more 
level  passages  often  is  !  When  the  story  was  first  written 
the  style  glittered  with  literary  ornament.  But  the 
author  deliberately  struck  out  many  of  the  poetic  passages. 
Coleridge  tells  us  that  an  imaginative  work  should  be 
written  in  a  simple  style,  and  that  the  more  imaginative 
the  work  the  simpler  the  style  should  be.  I  often  think 
of  these  words  when  I  labour  in  the  sweat  of  my  brow  to 


The  Word-Twisters  325 

read  the  word-twisting  of  precious  writers !  It  is  then 
that  I  think  of  '  Aylwin,'  for  '  Aylwin  '  stands  alone  in 
its  power  of  carrying  the  reader  away  to  climes  of  new 
and  rare  beauty  peopled  by  characters  as  new  and  as  rare. 
It  was  clearly  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  idea  that  what  such 
a  story  needed  was  mastery  over  '  artistic  convincement.' 
He  has  more  than  once  commented  on  the  acuteness  of 
Edgar  Poe's  remark  that  in  the  expression  of  true  passion 
there  is  always  something  of  the  '  homely.'  '  Aylwin  '  is 
one  long  unbroken  cry  of  passion,  mostly  in  a  '  homely 
key,'  but  this '  homely  key  '  is  left  for  loftier  keys  when- 
ever the  proper  time  for  the  change  comes.  In  beginning 
to  write,  the  author  seems  to  have  felt  that  '  The  Rena- 
scence of  Wonder '  and  the  quest  of  beauty,  although 
adequately  expressed  in  the  poetry  of  the  newest  romantic 
school — that  of  Rossetti,  Morris,  and  Swinburne — had 
only  found  its  way  into  imaginative  prose  through  the 
highly  elaborate  technique  of  his  friend,  George  Mere- 
dith. He  seems  to  have  felt  that  the  great  imaginative 
prose  writers  of  the  time,  Thackeray,  Dickens,  and  Charles 
Reade,  were  in  a  certain  sense  Philistines  of  genius  who 
had  done  but  little  to  bring  beauty,  romance  and  culture 
into  prose  fiction.  And  as  to  Meredith,  though  a  true 
child  of  romanticism  who  never  did  and  never  could 
breathe  the  air  of  Philistia,  he  had  adopted  a  style  too 
self-conscious  and  rich  in  literary  qualities  to  touch  that 
great  English  pulse  that  beats  outside  the  walls  of  the 
Palace  of  Art. 

Mrs.  Craigie  has  lately  declared  that  at  the  present 
moment  all  the  most  worthy  English  novelists,  with  the 
exception  of  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy,  are  distinguished 
disciples  of  Mr.  George  Meredith.  But  to  belong 
to  '  the  mock  Meredithians '  is  not  a  matter  of  very 
great  glory.      No  one  adores  the  work  of  Mr.  Meredith 


326  Imaginative  and  Didactic   Prose 

more  than  I  do,  though  my  admiration  is  not  without  a 
certain  leaven  of  distress  at  his  literary  self-consciousness. 
I  say  this  with  all  reverence.  Great  as  Meredith  is,  he 
would  be  greater  still  if,  when  he  is  delivering  his  price- 
less gifts  to  us,  he  would  bear  in  mind  that  immortal 
injunction  in  '  King  Henry  the  Fourth  ' — '  I  prithee 
now,  deliver  them  like  a  man  of  this  world.'  I  can 
imagine  how  the  great  humourist  must  smile  when 
the  dolt,  who  once  found  '  obscurity '  in  his  most  lucid 
passages,  praises  him  for  the  defects  of  his  qualities,  and 
calls  upon  all  other  writers  to  write  Meredithese. 

To  be  a  classic — to  be  immortal — it  is  necessary 
for  an  imaginative  writer  to  deliver  his  message  like  *  a 
man  of  this  world.'  Shakespeare  himself,  occasionally, 
will  seem  to  forget  this,  but  only  occasionally,  and  we 
never  think  of  it  when  falling  down  in  worship  before 
the  shrine  of  the  greatest  imaginative  writer  that  has 
ever  lived.  Dr.  Johnson  said  that  all  work  which  lives 
is  without  eccentricity.  Now,  entranced  as  I  have  been, 
ever  since  I  was  a  boy,  by  Meredith's  incomparable 
romances,  I  long  to  set  my  imagination  free  of  Meredith 
and  fly  away  with  his  characters,  as  I  can  fly  away  with  the 
characters  of  the  classic  imaginative  writers  from  Homer 
down  to  Sir  Walter  Scott.  But  I  seldom  succeed. 
Now  and  then  I  escape  from  the  obsession  of  the  picture 
of  the  great  writer  seated  in  his  chalet  with  the  summer 
sunshine  gleaming  round  his  picturesque  head,  but  illum- 
inating also  all  too  vividly  his  inkstand,  and  his  paper 
and  his  pens ;  but  only  now  and  then,  and  not  for  long. 
If  it  had  pleased  Nature  to  give  him  less  intellectual 
activity,  less  humour  and  wit  and  literary  brilliance,  I  feel 
sure  that  he  would  have  lived  more  securely  as  an  English 
classic.  I  adore  him,  I  say,  and  although  I  do  not  know 
him  personally,  I  love  him.     We  all  love  him  :  and  when 


The  Mock  Meredithians  327 

I  am  in  a  very  charitable  mood,  I  can  even  forgive  him  for 
having  begotten  the  '  mock  Meredithians.'  As  to  those 
who,  without  a  spark  of  his  humourous  imagination  and 
supple  intellect  can  manage  to  mimic  his  style,  if  they 
only  knew  what  a  torture  their  word-twisting  is  to  the 
galled  reviewer  who  wants  to  get  on,  and  to  know  what 
on  earth  they  have  got  to  tell  him,  I  think  they  would 
display  a  little  more  mercy,  and  even  for  pity's  sake 
deliver  their  gifts  like  '  men  of  this  world.' 

In  '  Aylwin '  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  seems  to  have  deter- 
mined to  be  as  romantic  and  as  beautiful  as  the  roman- 
ticists in  poetry  had  ever  dared  to  be,  and  yet  by  aid 
of  a  simplicity  and  a  na"lvete  of  diction  of  which  his 
critical  writings  had  shown  no  sign,  to  carry  his  beauti- 
ful dreams  into  Philistia  itself.  Never  was  there  a  bolder 
enterprise,  and  never  was  there  a  greater  success.  That 
'  Aylwin  '  would  appeal  strongly  to  imaginative  minds 
was  certain,  for  it  was  written  by  '  the  most  widely 
cultivated  writer  in  the  English  belles  lettres  of  our 
time.'  But  the  strange  thing  is  that  a  story  so  full  of 
romance,  poetry,  and  beauty,  should  also  appeal  to  other 
minds. 

I  am  no  believer  in  mere  popularity,  and  I  confess 
that  when  books  come  before  me  for  review  I  cannot 
help  casting  a  suspicious  eye  upon  any  story  by  any  of 
the  very  popular  novelists  of  the  day.  But  it  is  necessary 
to  explain  why  the  most  poetical  romance  written  within 
the  last  century  is  also  one  of  the  most  popular.  It  was 
in  part  owing  to  its  simplicity  of  diction,  its  na'fvete 
of  utterance,  and  its  freedom  from  superfluous  literary 
ornamentation.  I  do  not  as  a  rule  like  using  a  foreign  word 
when  an  English  word  will  do  the  same  work,  but  neither 
*  artlessness,'  '  candour '  nor  '  simplicity '  seem  to  express 
the  unique  charm  of  the  style  of  '  Aylwin,'  so  completely 


328  Imaginative  and  Didactic  Prose 

as  does  the  word  *  na'fvete.'  It  was  by  naltvete,  I 
believe,  that  he  carried  the  Renascence  of  Wonder  into 
quarters  which  his  great  brothers  in  the  Romantic  move- 
ment could  never  reach. 

For  such  a  writer  as  he,  the  critic  steeped  in  all  the 
latest  subtleties  of  the  style  of  to-day,  and  indeed  the 
originator  of  many  of  these  subtleties,  the  intimate 
friend  of  such  superb  and  elaborate  literary  artists  as 
Tennyson,  Browning,  George  Meredith,  Rossetti  and 
Swinburne,  it  must  have  been  inconceivably  difficult 
to  write  the  '  working  portions '  of  his  narrative  in 
a  style  as  unbookish  at  times  as  if  he  had  written  in  the 
pre-Meredithian  epoch.  Having  set  out  to  convince  his 
readers  of  the  truth  of  what  he  was  telling  them,  he 
determined  to  sacrifice  all  literary  '  self-indulgence  '  to 
that  end.  I  do  not  recollect  that  any  critic,  when  the 
book  came  out,  noted  this.  But  if  '  Aylwin '  had  been  a 
French  book  published  in  France,  the  na"fve  style  adopted 
by  the  autobiographer  would  have  been  recognized  by 
the  critics  as  the  crowning  proof  of  the  author's  dramatic 
genius.  Whenever  the  style  seems  most  to  suggest  the 
pre-Meredithian  writers,  it  is  because  the  story  is  an 
autobiography  and  because  the  hero  lived  in  pre- 
Meredithian  times.  Difficult  as  was  Thackeray's  tour 
de  force  in  '  Esmond,'  it  was  nothing  to  the  tour  de 
force  of  '  Aylwin.'  The  tale  is  told  '  as  though  inspired 
by  the  very  spirit  of  youth  '  because  the  hero  was  a 
youth  when  he  told  it.  It  is  hard  to  imagine  a  writer 
past  the  meridian  of  life  being  able  to  write  a  story 
'  more  flushed  with  the  glory  and  the  passion  and  the 
wonder  of  youth  than  any  other  in  English  fiction.' 

It  should  be  noted  that  whenever  the  incidents 
become  especially  tragic  or  romantic  or  weird  or  poetic, 
the  '  homeliness '  of  the  style  goes — the  style  at  once  rises 


Richness  in  Style  329 

to  the  occasion,  it  becomes  not  only  rich,  but  too  rich  for 
prose.  I  have  now  and  then  heard  certain  word-twisters 
of  second-hand  Meredithese  speak  of  the  '  baldness '  of  the 
style  of  '  Aylwin.'  Roll  fifty  of  these  word-twisters 
into  one,  and  let  that  one  write  a  sentence  or  two  of  such 
prose  as  this,  published  at  the  time  that  '  Aylwin '  was 
written.  It  occurs  in  a  passage  on  the  greatest  of  all 
rich  writers,  Shakespeare  : — 

"  In  the  quality  of  richness  Shakespeare  stood  quite 
alone  till  the  publication  of  '  Endymion.'  Till  then  it 
was  '  Eclipse  first — the  rest  nowhere.'  When  we  think 
of  Shakespeare,  it  is  his  richness  more  than  even  his 
higher  qualities  that  we  think  of  first.  In  reading  him, 
we  feel  at  every  turn  that  we  have  come  upon  a  mind  as 
rich  as  Marlowe's  Moor,  who 

Without  control  can  pick  his  riches  up, 

And  in  his  house  heap  pearls,  like  pebble-stones. 

Nay,  he  is  richer  still ;  he  can,  by  merely  looking  at  the 
'  pebble-stones,'  turn  them  into  pearls  for  himself,  like 
the  changeling  child  recovered  from  the  gnomes  in  the 
Rosicrucian  story.  His  riches  burden  him.  And  no 
wonder  :  it  is  stiff  flying  with  the  ruby  hills  of  Badakh- 
shdn  on  your  back.  Nevertheless,  so  strong  are  the 
wings  of  his  imagination,  so  lordly  is  his  intellect,  that  he 
can  carry  them  all ;  he  could  carry,  it  would  seem,  every 
gem  in  Golconda — every  gem  in  every  planet  from  here 
to  Neptune — and  yet  win  his  goal.  Now,  in  the  matter 
of  richness  this  is  the  great  difference  between  him  and 
Keats,  the  wings  of  whose  imagination,  aerial  at  starting, 
and  only  iridescent  like  the  sails  of  a  dragon-fly,  seem  to 
change  as  he  goes — become  overcharged  with  beauty,  in 
fact — abloom  '  with  splendid  dyes,  as  are  the  tiger- 
moth's  deep-damasked  wings.'     Or,  rather,  it  may  be 


330  Imaginative  and   Didactic  Prose 

said  that  he  seems  to  start  sometimes  with  Shakespeare's 
own  eagle-pinions,  which,  as  he  mounts,  catch  and  retain 
colour  after  colour  from  the  earth  below,  till,  heavy  with 
beauty  as  the  drooping  wings  of  a  golden  pheasant,  they 
fly  low  and  level  at  last  over  the  earth  they  cannot  leave 
for  its  loveliness,  not  even  for  the  holiness  of  the  skies." 

I  will  give  a  few  instances  of  passages  in  '  Aylwin  ' 
quite  as  rich  as  this.  One  shall  be  from  that  scene 
in  which  Winifred  unconsciously  reveals  to  her  lover 
that  her  father  has  stolen  the  jewelled  cross  and  brought 
his  own  father's  curse  upon  her  beloved  head  : — 

"  Winifred  picked  up  the  sea  weed  and  made  a  neck- 
lace of  it,  in  the  old  childish  way,  knowing  how  much  it 
would  please  me. 

*  Isn't  it  a  lovely  colour  ?  '  she  said,  as  it  glistened  in 
the  moonlight.  '  Isn't  it  just  as  beautiful  and  just  as 
precious  as  if  it  were  really  made  of  the  jewels  it  seems 
to  rival  ?  ' 

'  It  is  as  red  as  the  reddest  ruby,'  I  replied,  putting 
out  my  hand  and  grasping  the  slippery  substance. 

'  Would  you  believe,'  said  Winnie,  '  that  I  never 
saw  a  ruby  in  my  life  ?  And  now  I  particularly  want  to 
know  all  about  rubies.' 

'  Why  do  you  want  particularly  to  know  ?  ' 

*  Because,'  said  Winifred, '  my  father,  when  he  wished 
me  to  come  out  for  a  walk,  had  been  talking  a  great  deal 
about  rubies.' 

'  Your  father  had  been  talking  about  rubies,  Wini- 
fred— how  very  odd  !  ' 

*  Yes,'  said  Winifred,  *  and  he  talked  about  diamonds 
too.' 

*  The  Curse  !  '  I  murmured,  and  clasped  her  to  my 
breast.     '  Kiss  me,  Winifred  !  ' 


Examples  of  Richness  in  Prose  331 

There  had  come  a  bite  of  sudden  fire  at  my  heart, 
and  I  shuddered  with  a  dreadful  knowledge,  like  the 
captain  of  an  unarmed  ship,  who,  while  the  unconscious 
landsmen  on  board  are  gaily  scrutinizing  a  sail  that  like 
a  speck  has  appeared  on  the  horizon,  shudders  with  the 
knowledge  of  what  the  speck  is,  and  hears  in  imagina- 
tion the  yells,  and  sees  the  knives,  of  the  Lascar  pirates 
just  starting  in  pursuit.  As  I  took  in  the  import  of 
those  innocent  words,  falling  from  Winifred's  bright  lips, 
falling  as  unconsciously  as  water-drops  over  a  coral  reef 
in  tropical  seas  alive  with  the  eyes  of  a  thousand  sharks, 
my  skin  seemed  to  roughen  with  dread,  and  my  hair 
began  to  stir." 

Another  instance  occurs  in  Wilderspin's  ornate  de- 
scription of  his  great  picture,  *  Faith  and  Love '  : — 

"  '  Imagine  yourself  standing  in  an  Egyptian  city, 
where  innumerable  lamps  of  every  hue  are  shining.  It 
is  one  of  the  great  lamp-f6tes  of  Sais,  which  all  Egypt 
has  come  to  see.  There,  in  honour  of  the  feast,  sits  a 
tall  woman,  covered  by  a  veil.  But  the  painting  is  so 
wonderful,  Mr.  Aylwin,  that,  though  you  see  a  woman's 
face  expressed  behind  the  veil — though  you  see  the  warm 
flesh-tints  and  the  light  of  the  eyes  through  the  atrial 
film — you  cannot  judge  of  the  character  of  the  face — 
you  cannot  see  whether  it  is  that  of  woman  in  her  no- 
blest, or  woman  in  her  basest,  type.  The  eyes  sparkle, 
but  you  cannot  say  whether  they  sparkle  with  malignity 
or  benevolence — whether  they  are  fired  with  what  Philip 
Aylwin  calls  "  the  love-light  of  the  seventh  heaven,"  or 
are  threatening  with  "  the  hungry  flames  of  the  seventh 
hell  !  "  There  she  sits  in  front  of  a  portico,  while,  asleep, 
with  folded  wings,  is  crouched  on  one  side  of  her  the 


332  Imaginative  and  Didactic  Prose 

figure  of  Love,  with  rosy  feathers,  and  on  the  other  the 
figure  of  Faith,  with  plumage  of  a  deep  azure.  Over  her 
head,  on  the  portico,  are  written  the  words  : — "  I  am  all 
that  hath  been,  is,  and  shall  be,  and  no  mortal  hath  un- 
covered my  veil."  The  tinted  lights  falling  on  the  group 
are  shed,  you  see,  from  the  rainbow-coloured  lamps  of 
Sais,  which  are  countless.  But  in  spite  of  all  these  lamps, 
Mr.  Aylwin,  no  mortal  can  see  the  face  behind  that  veil. 
And  why  ?  Those  who  alone  could  uplift  it,  the  figures 
folded  with  wings — Faith  and  Love — are  fast  asleep, 
at  the  great  Queen's  feet.  When  Faith  and  Love  are 
sleeping  there,  what  are  the  many-coloured  lamps  of 
science  ! — of  what  use  are  they  to  the  famished  soul  of 
man  ?  ' 

*  A  striking  idea  !  '  I  exclaimed. 

'  Your  father's,'  replied  Wilderspin,  in  a  tone  of  such 
reverence  that  one  might  have  imagined  my  father's 
spectre  stood  before  him.  '  It  symbolises  that  base  Dar- 
winian cosmogony  which  Carlyle  spits  at,  and  the  great 
and  good  John  Ruskin  scorns.  But  this  design  is  only 
the  predella  beneath  the  picture  "  Faith  and  Love."  Now 
look  at  the  picture  itself,  Mr.  Aylwin,'  he  continued, 
as  though  it  were  upon  an  easel  before  me.  '  You  are  at 
Sais  no  longer  :  you  are  now,  as  the  architecture  around 
you  shows,  in  a  Greek  city  by  the  sea.  In  the  light  of 
innumerable  lamps,  torches,  and  wax  tapers,  a  proces- 
sion is  moving  through  the  streets.  You  see  Isis,  as 
Pelagia,  advancing  between  two  ranks,  one  of  joyous 
maidens  in  snow  white  garments,  adorned  with  wreaths, 
and  scattering  from  their  bosoms  all  kinds  of  dewy 
flowers  ;  the  other  of  youths,  playing  upon  pipes  and 
flutes  mixed  with  men  with  shaven  shining  crowns,  play- 
ing upon  sistra  of  brass,  silver,  and  gold.  Isis  wears  a 
Dorian  tunic,  fastened  on  her  breast  by  a  tasselled  knot, 


Examples  of  Richness  in   Prose         333 

— an  azure-coloured  tunic  bordered  with  silver  stars, — 
and  an  upper  garment  of  the  colour  of  the  moon  at  moon- 
rise.  Her  head  is  crowned  with  a  chaplet  of  sea-flowers, 
and  round  her  throat  is  a  necklace  of  seaweeds,  wet  still 
with  sea-water,  and  shimmering  with  all  the  shifting  hues 
of  the  sea.  On  either  side  of  her  stand  the  awakened 
angels,  uplifting  from  her  face  a  veil  whose  folds  flow  soft 
as  water  over  her  shoulders  and  over  the  wings  of  Faith 
and  Love.  A  symbol  of  the  true  cosmogony  which 
Philip  Aylwin  gave  to  the  world  !  '  " 

Another  instance  I  take  from  that  scene  in  the  crypt 
whither  Aylwin  had  been  drawn  against  his  will  by  the 
ancestral  impulses  in  his  blood  to  replace  the  jewelled 
cross  upon  the  breast  of  his  father  : — 

"  Having,  with  much  difficulty,  opened  the  door,  I 
entered  the  crypt.  The  atmosphere,  though  not  noi- 
some, was  heavy,  and  charged  with  an  influence  that 
worked  an  extraordinary  effect  upon  my  brain  and 
nerves.  It  was  as  though  my  personality  were  becom- 
ing dissipated,  until  at  last  it  was  partly  the  reflex  of 
ancestral  experiences.  Scarcely  had  this  mood  passed 
before  a  sensation  came  upon  me  of  being  fanned  as  if 
by  clammy  bat-like  wings  ;  and  then  the  idea  seized  me 
that  the  crypt  scintillated  with  the  eyes  of  a  malignant 
foe.  It  was  as  if  the  curse  which,  until  I  heard  Winnie 
a  beggar  singing  in  the  street,  had  been  to  me  but  a 
collocation  of  maledictory  words,  harmless  save  in  their 
effect  upon  her  superstitious  mind,  had  here  assumed  an 
actual  corporeal  shape.  In  the  uncertain  light  shed  by 
the  lantern,  I  seemed  to  see  the  face  of  this  embodied 
curse  with  an  ever-changing  mockery  of  expression  ;  at 
one  moment  wearing  the  features  of  my  father  ;   at  an- 


334        Imaginative  and   Didactic    Prose 

other,  those  of  Tom  Wynne  ;  at  another  the  leer  of  the 
old  woman  I  had  seen  in  Cyril's  studio. 

"  *  It  is  an  illusion,'  I  said,  as  I  closed  my  eyes  to  shut 
it  out ;  '  it  is  an  illusion,  born  of  opiate  fumes  or  else  of 
an  over-taxed  brain  and  an  exhausted  stomach.'  Yet  it 
disturbed  me  as  much  as  if  my  reason  had  accepted  it  as 
real.  Against  this  foe  I  seemed  to  be  fighting  towards 
my  father's  coffin  as  a  dreamer  fights  against  a  nightmare, 
and  at  last  I  fell  over  one  of  the  heaps  of  old  Danish  bones 
in  a  corner  of  the  crypt.  The  candle  fell  from  my  lan- 
tern, and  I  was  in  darkness.  As  I  sat  there  I  passed  into 
a  semi-conscious  state.  I  saw  sitting  at  the  apex  of  a 
towering  pyramid,  built  of  phosphorescent  human  bones 
that  reached  far,  far  above  the  stars,  the  '  Queen  of  Death, 
Nin-ki-gal,'  scattering  seeds  over  the  earth  below.  At 
the  pyramid's  base  knelt  the  suppliant  figure  of  a  Sibyl 
pleading  with  the  Queen  of  Death  : 

What  answer,  O  Nin-ki-gal  ? 
Have  pity,  O  Queen  of  Queens ! 

I  sprang  up,  struck  a  light  and  relit  the  candle,  and  soon 
reached  the  coffin  resting  on  a  stone  table.  I  found,  on 
examining  it,  that  although  it  had  been  screwed  down 
after  the  discovery  of  the  violation,  the  work  had  been  so 
loosely  done  that  a  few  turns  of  the  screwdriver  were  suf- 
ficient to  set  the  lid  free.  Then  I  paused  ;  for  to  raise 
the  loosened  lid  (knowing  as  I  did  that  it  was  only  the 
blood's  inherited  follies  that  had  conquered  my  rational- 
ism and  induced  me  to  disturb  the  tomb)  seemed  to 
require  the  strength  of  a  giant.  Moreover,  the  fantastic 
terror  of  old  Lantoff's  story,  which  at  another  time  would 
have  made  me  smile,  also  took  bodily  shape,  and  the  pic- 
ture of  a  dreadful  struggle  at  the  edge  of  the  cliff  between 


Examples   of  Richness  in   Prose         335 

Winnie's  father  and  mine  seemed  to  hang  in  the  air — a 
fascinating  mirage  of  ghastly  horror  .  .  . 

"  At  last,  by  an  immense  effort  of  will,  I  closed  my  eyes 
and  pushed  the  lid  violently  on  one  side  .  .  . 

The  *  sweet  odours  and  divers  kinds  of  spices  '  of  the 
Jewish  embalmer  rose  like  a  gust  of  incense — rose  and 
spread  through  the  crypt  like  the  sweet  breath  of  a  new- 
born blessing,  till  the  air  of  the  charnel-house  seemed 
laden  with  a  mingled  odour  of  indescribable  sweetness. 
Never  had  any  odour  so  delighted  my  senses ;  never  had 
any  sensuous  influence  so  soothed  my  soul. 

While  I  stood  inhaling  the  scents  of  opobalsam,  and 
cinnamon  and  myrrh,  and  wine  of  palm  and  oil  of  cedar, 
and  all  the  other  spices  of  the  Pharaohs,  mingled  in  one 
strange  aromatic  cloud,  my  personality  seemed  again  to 
become,  in  part,  the  reflex  of  ancestral  experiences. 

I  opened  my  eyes.  I  looked  into  the  coffin.  The 
face  (which  had  been  left  by  the  embalmer  exposed) 
confronted  mine.  '  Fenella  Stanley  !  '  I  cried,  for  the 
great  transfigurer  Death  had  written  upon  my  father's 
brow  that  self-same  message  which  the  passions  of  a  thou- 
sand Romany  ancestors  had  set  upon  the  face  of  her  whose 
portrait  hung  in  the  picture-gallery.  And  the  rubies  and 
diamonds  and  beryls  of  the  cross  as  it  now  hung  upon 
my  breast,  catching  the  light  of  the  opened  lantern  in 
my  left  hand,  shed  over  the  features  an  indescribable 
reflex  hue  of  quivering  rose. 

Beneath  his  head  I  placed  the  silver  casket  :  I  hung 
the  hair-chain  round  his  neck  :  I  laid  upon  his  breast  the 
long-loved  memento  of  his  love  and  the  parchment  scroll. 

Then  I  sank  down  by  the  coffin,  and  prayed.  I  knew 
not  what  or  why.  But  never  since  the  first  human  prayer 
was  breathed  did  there  rise  to  heaven  a  supplication  so 
incoherent  and  so  wild  as  mine.     Then  I  rose,  and  lay- 


336  Imaginative  and   Didactic   Prose 

ing  my  hand  upon  my  father's  cold  brow,  I  said  :  *  You 
have  forgiven  me  for  all  the  wild  words  that  I  uttered 
in  my  long  agony.  They  were  but  the  voice  of  intoler- 
able misery  rebelling  against  itself.  You,  who  suffered 
so  much — who  know  so  well  those  flames  burning  at 
the  heart's  core — those  flames  before  which  all  the  forces 
of  the  man  go  down  like  prairie-grass  before  the  fire 
and  wind — you  have  forgiven  me.  You  who  knew  the 
meaning  of  the  wild  word  Love — you  have  forgiven  your 
suffering  son,  stricken  like  yourself.  You  have  forgiven 
me,  father,  and  forgiven  him,  the  despoiler  of  your  tomb  : 
you  have  removed  the  curse,  and  his  child — his  innocent 
child — is  free.'  .  .   . 

I  replaced  the  coffin-lid,  and  screwing  it  down  left 
the  crypt,  so  buoyant  and  exhilarated  that  I  stopped  in 
the  churchyard  and  asked  myself  :  '  Do  I,  then,  really 
believe  that  she  was  under  a  curse  ?  Do  I  really  believe 
that  my  restoring  the  amulet  has  removed  it  ?  Have  I 
really  come  to  this  ?  ' 

Throughout  all  these  proceedings — yes,  even  amidst 
that  prayer  to  Heaven,  amidst  that  impassioned  appeal 
to  my  dead  father — had  my  reason  been  keeping  up  that 
scoffing  at  my  heart  which  I  have  before  described." 

My  last  instance  shall  be  from  D'Arcy's  letter,  in  which 
he  records  the  marvellous  events  that  led  to  his  meeting 
with  Winifred  : — 

"  And  now,  my  dear  Aylwin,  having  acted  as  a  some- 
what prosaic  reporter  of  these  wonderful  events,  I  should 
like  to  conclude  my  letter  with  a  word  or  two  about  what 
took  place  when  I  parted  from  you  in  the  streets  of  Lon- 
don. I  saw  then  that  your  sufferings  had  been  very  great, 
and  since  that  time  they  must  have  been  tenfold  greater. 


Examples  of  Richness  in    Prose  337 

And  now  I  rejoice  to  think  that,  of  all  the  men  in  this 
world  who  have  ever  loved,  you,  through  this  very  suffer- 
ing, have  been  the  most  fortunate.  As  Job's  faith  was 
tried  by  Heaven,  so  has  your  love  been  tried  by  the  power 
which  you  call  *  circumstance '  and  which  Wilderspin 
calls  *  the  spiritual  world.'  All  that  death  has  to  teach 
the  mind  and  the  heart  of  man  you  have  learnt  to  the 
very  full,  and  yet  she  you  love  is  restored  to  you,  and  will 
soon  be  in  your  arms.  I,  alas  !  have  long  known  that  the 
tragedy  of  tragedies  is  the  death  of  a  beloved  mistress,  or 
a  beloved  wife.  I  have  long  known  that  it  is  as  the  King 
of  Terrors  that  Death  must  needs  come  to  any  man  who 
knows  what  the  word  *  love  '  really  means.  I  have  never 
been  a  reader  of  philosophy,  but  I  understand  that  the 
philosophers  of  all  countries  have  been  preaching  for  ages 
upon  ages  about  resignation  to  Death — about  the  final 
beneficence  of  Death — that  '  reasonable  moderator  and 
equipoise  of  justice,'  as  Sir  Thomas  Browne  calls  him. 
Equipoise  of  justice  indeed  !  He  who  can  read  with 
tolerance  such  words  as  these  must  have  known  nothing 
of  the  true  passion  of  love  for  a  woman  as  you  and  I  under- 
stand it.  The  Elizabethans  are  full  of  this  nonsense  ; 
but  where  does  Shakespeare,  with  all  his  immense  philo- 
sophical power,  ever  show  this  temper  of  acquiescence  ? 
All  his  impeachments  of  Death  have  the  deep  ring  of 
personal  feeling — dramatist  though  he  was.  But,  what 
I  am  going  to  ask  you  is.  How  shall  the  modern  material- 
ist, who  you  think  is  to  dominate  the  Twentieth  Century 
and  all  the  centuries  to  follow — ^how  shall  he  confront 
Death  when  a  beloved  mistress  is  struck  down  ?  When 
Moschus  lamented  that  the  mallow,  the  anise,  and  the 
parsley  had  a  fresh  birth  every  year,  whilst  we  men  sleep 
in  the  hollow  earth  a  long,  unbounded,  never-waking 
sleep,  he  told  us  what  your  modern  materiaHst  tells  us, 
w.-D.  22 


33^  Imaginative  and  Didactic  Prose 

and  he  re-echoed  the  lamentation  which,  long  before 
Greece  had  a  literature  at  all,  had  been  heard  beneath 
Chaldean  stars  and  along  the  mud-banks  of  the  Nile. 
Your  bitter  experience  made  you  ask  materialism.  What 
comfort  is  there  in  being  told  that  death  is  the  very- 
nursery  of  new  life,  and  that  our  heirs  are  our  very  selves, 
if  when  you  take  leave  of  her  who  was  and  is  your  world 
it  is  '  Vale,  vale,  in  aeternum  vale  '  ?  " 

These  quotations  may  be  taken  as  specimens  of  the 
passages  of  decorated  writing  which  the  author,  in  order 
to  get  closer  to  the  imagination  of  the  reader,  mercilessly 
struck  out  in  proof.  Whether  he  did  wisely  or  unwisely 
in  striking  them  out  is  an  interesting  question  for 
criticism. 

But  certainly  the  reader  has  only  to  go  through  the 
book  with  this  criticism  in  his  mind,  and  he  will  see  that 
when  the  story  passes  into  such  lofty  speculation  as  that 
of  the  opening  sentences  of  the  book,  or  into  some  equally 
lofty  mood  of  the  love  passion,  the  style  becomes  not 
only  full  of  literary  qualities,  but  almost  over-full;  it 
becomes  a  style  which  can  best  be  described  in  his  own 
words  about  richness  of  style  which  I  have  quoted  from 
the  '  Athenaeum.'  I  do  not  doubt  that  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  was  quite  right  in  acting  upon  Coleridge's 
theory  ;  for,  notwithstanding  the  '  fairy-like  beauty  '  of 
the  story  it  is  as  convincing  as  a  story  told  upon  a 
prosaic  subject  by  Defoe.  In  fact,  it  would  be  hard  to 
name  any  novel  wherein  those  laws  of  means  and  ends 
in  art  which  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has  formulated  in  the 
'  Athenaeum  '  are  more  fully  observed  than  in  '  Aylwin.' 

Madame  Galimberti  says  in  the  '  Rivista  d'ltalia  '  : — 
"  '  Aylwin  '  was  begun  in  verse,  and  was  written  in  prose 
only  when   the   plot,  taking,  so   to  say,  the  poet  by  the 


Difference  between  Prose  and   Poetry    339 

hand,  showed  the  necessity  of  a  form  more  in  keeping 
with  the  nature  of  the  work ;  and  in  '  The  Coming  of 
Love,'  in  which  the  facts  are  condensed  so  as  to  give 
full  relief  to  the  philosophical  motive,  the  result  is, 
in  my  opinion,  more  perfect."  ^  My  remarks  upon  '  The 
Coming  of  Love '  will  show  that  I  agree  with  the 
accomplished  wife  of  the  Italian  Minister  in  placing  it 
above  '  Aylwin  '  as  a  satisfactory  work  of  art,  but  that 
is  because  I  consider  '  The  Coming  of  Love  '  the  most 
important  as  well  as  the  most  original  poem  that  has  been 
published  for  many  years. 

Aiadame  Galimberti  touches  here  upon  a  very  import- 
ant subject  for  the  literary  student.  I  may  say  for  my- 
self that  I  have  invariably  spoken  of  '  Aylwin '  as  a 
poem,  and  I  have  done  so  deliberately.  Indeed,  I  think 
the  fact  that  it  is  a  poem  is  at  once  its  strength  and  its 
weakness.  It  does  not  come  under  the  critical  canons 
that  are  applied  to  a  prose  novel  or  romance.  As  a 
prose  novel  its  one  defect  is  that  the  quest  for  mere 
beauty  is  pushed  too  far ;  lovely  picture  follows  lovely 
picture  until  the  novel  reader  is  inclined  at  last  to  cry, 
'  Hold,  enough  !  ' 

In  one  of  his  essays  on  Morris,  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  asks, 
'  What  is  poetic  prose  ?  '  And  then  follows  a  passage 
which  must  always  be  borne  in  mind  when  criticizing 
'  Aylwin.' 

"  On  no   subject  in  literary  criticism,"  says  he,   "  has 

1  "  Tanto  e  vcro,  che  '  Aylwin  '  fu  cominciato  a  scrivere  in  versi,  e 
mutato  di  forma  soltanto  quando  I'intreccio,  in  certo  modo  prendendo 
la  mano  al  poeta,  rese  necessario  un  genere  di  sua  natura  meno  astretto 
alia  rappresentazione  di  scorcio  ;  e  che  I'Awento  d'amore,  ove  le  cir- 
costanze  di  fatto  sono  condensate  in  modo  da  dar  pieno  risalto  al  motive 
filosofico,  riesce  una  cosa,  a  mio  credere,  piu  perfetta." 


340  Imaginative   and  Didactic    Prose 

there  been  a  more  persistent  misconception  than  upon 
this.  What  is  called  poetic  prose  is  generally  rhetorical 
prose,  and  between  rhetoric  and  poetry  there  is  a  great 
difference.  Poetical  prose,  we  take  it,  is  that  kind  of 
prose  which  above  all  other  kinds  holds  in  suspense  the 
essential  qualities  of  poetry.  If  '  eloquence  is  heard  and 
poetry  overheard,'  where  shall  be  placed  the  tremendous 
perorations  of  De  Quincey,  or  the  sonorous  and  highly- 
coloured  descriptions  of  Ruskin  ?  Grand  and  beautiful 
are  such  periods  as  these,  no  doubt,  but  prose  to  be  truly 
poetical  must  move  far  away  from  them.  It  must,  in  a 
word,  have  all  the  qualities  of  what  we  technically  call 
poetry  except  metre.  We  have,  indeed,  said  before  that 
while  the  poet's  object  is  to  arouse  in  the  listener  an  ex- 
pectancy of  caesuric  effects,  the  great  goal  before  the 
writer  of  poetic  prose  is  in  the  very  opposite  direction  ; 
it  is  to  make  use  of  the  concrete  figures  and  impassioned 
diction  that  are  the  poet's  vehicle,  but  at  the  same  time 
to  avoid  the  expectancy  of  metrical  bars.  The  moment 
that  the  regular  bars  assert  themselves  and  lead  the 
reader's  ears  to  expect  other  bars  of  the  like  kind,  sin- 
cerity ends." 

Mr.  Watts-Dunton  himself  has  given  us  the  best  of 
all  canons  for  answering  the  question,  '  What  is  a  poem 
as  distinguished  from  other  forms  of  imaginative  liter- 
ature ?  "     In  his  essay  on  Poetry  he  says  : — 


"  Owing  to  the  fact  that  the  word  Troinriis  (first  used 
to  designate  the  poetic  artist  by  Herodotus)  means  maker, 
Aristotle  seems  to  have  assumed  that  the  indispensable 
basis  of  poetry  is  invention.  He  appears  to  have  thought 
that  a  poet  is  a  poet  more  on  account  of  the  composition 
of  the  action  than  on  account  of  the  composition  of  his 


Aristotle   on   Prose   and    Poetry  341 

verses.  Indeed,  he  said  as  much  as  this.  Of  epic  poetry- 
he  declared  emphatically  that  it  produces  its  imitations 
either  by  mere  articulate  words  or  by  metre  superadded. 
This  is  to  widen  the  definition  of  poetry  so  as  to  include 
all  imaginative  literature,  and  Plato  seems  to  have  given 
an  equally  wide  meaning  to  the  word  Troirja-i?.  Only, 
while  Aristotle  considered  Troltja-i?  to  be  an  imitation  of 
the  facts  of  nature,  Plato  considered  it  to  be  an  imitation 
of  the  dreams  of  man.  Aristotle  ignored,  and  Plato 
slighted,  the  importance  of  versification  (though  Plato  on 
one  occasion  admitted  that  he  who  did  not  know  rhythm 
could  be  called  neither  musician  nor  poet).  It  is  im- 
possible to  discuss  here  the  question  whether  an  imagin- 
ative work  in  which  the  method  is  entirely  concrete  and 
the  expression  entirely  emotional,  while  the  form  is  un- 
metrical,  is  or  is  not  entitled  to  be  called  a  poem.  That 
there  may  be  a  kind  of  unmetrical  narrative  so  poetic  in 
motive,  so  concrete  in  diction,  so  emotional  in  treatment, 
as  to  escape  altogether  from  those  critical  canons  usually 
applied  to  prose,  we  shall  see  when,  in  discussing  the  epic, 
we  come  to  touch  upon  the  Northern  sagas. 

"  Perhaps  the  first  critic  who  tacitly  revolted  against  the 
dictum  that  substance,  and  not  form,  is  the  indispensable 
basis  of  poetry  was  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  whose 
treatise  upon  the  arrangement  of  words  is  really  a  very 
fine  piece  of  literary  criticism.  In  his  acute  remarks 
upon  the  arrangement  of  the  words  in  the  sixteenth 
book  of  the  Odyssey,  as  compared  with  that  in  the  story 
of  Gyges  by  Herodotus,  was  perhaps  first  enunciated 
clearly  the  doctrine  that  poetry  is  fundamentally  a 
matter  of  style.  The  Aristotelian  theory  as  to  invention, 
however,  dominated  all  criticism  after  as  well  as  before 
Dionysius.  When  Bacon  came  to  discuss  the  subject 
(and  afterwards),  the  only  division  between  the  poetical 


342  Imaginative   and   Didactic  Prose 

critics  was  perhaps  between  the  followers  of  Aristotle 
and  those  of  Plato  as  to  what  poetry  should,  and  what 
it  should  not,  imitate.  It  is  curious  to  speculate  as  to 
what  would  have  been  the  result  had  the  poets  followed 
the  critics  in  this  matter.  Perhaps  there  are  critics  of 
a  very  high  rank  who  would  class  as  poems  romances 
so  concrete  in  method  and  diction,  and  so  full  of  poetic 
energy,  as  *  Wuthering  Heights '  and  '  Jane  Eyre,'  where 
we  get  absolutely  all  that  Aristotle  requires  for  a  poem." 

Now,  if  this  be  so  in  regard  to  those  great  ro- 
mances, it  must  be  still  more  so  with  regard  to  '  Ayl- 
win,'  where  beauty  and  nothing  but  beauty  seems  to 
be  the  be-all  and  the  end-all  of  the  work. 

As  '  Aylwin '  was  begun  in  metre,  it  would  be 
very  interesting  to  know  on  what  lines  the  metre  was 
constructed.  Readers  of  *  Aylwin '  have  been  struck 
with  the  music  of  the  opening  sentences,  which  are 
given  as  an  extract  from  Philip  Aylwin's  book,  '  The 
Veiled  Queen  '  : — 

"  Those  who  in  childhood  have  had  solitary  com- 
munings with  the  sea  know  the  sea's  prophecy.  They 
know  that  there  is  a  deeper  sympathy  between  the  sea 
and  the  soul  of  man  than  other  people  dream  of.  They 
know  that  the  water  seems  nearer  akin  than  the  land  to 
the  spiritual  world,  inasmuch  as  it  is  one  and  indivisible, 
and  has  motion,  and  answers  to  the  mysterious  call  of 
the  winds,  and  is  the  writing  tablet  of  the  moon  and 
stars.  When  a  child  who,  born  beside  the  sea,  and 
beloved  by  the  sea,  feels  suddenly,  as  he  gazes  upon  it, 
a  dim  sense  of  pity  and  warning ;  when  there  comes,  or 
seems  to  come,  a  shadow  across  the  waves,  with  never  a 
cloud  in  the  sky  to  cast  it ;  when  there  comes  a  shudder- 


What  would  have  been  the  Metre  of'  Aylwin  '  343 

ing  as  of  wings  that  move  in  dread  or  ire,  then  such  a 
child  feels  as  if  the  bloodhounds  of  calamity  are  let  loose 
upon  him  or  upon  those  he  loves ;  he  feels  that  the  sea 
has  told  him  all  it  dares  tell  or  can.  And,  in  other  moods 
of  fate,  when  beneath  a  cloudy  sky  the  myriad  dimples 
of  the  sea  begin  to  sparkle  as  though  the  sun  were  shining 
bright  upon  them,  such  a  child  feels,  as  he  gazes  at  it, 
that  the  sea  is  telling  him  of  some  great  joy  near  at  hand, 
or,  at  least,  not  far  off." 

Many  a  reader  will  echo  the  words  of  a  writer  in 
'  Notes  and  Queries,'  who  says  that  this  passage  has 
haunted  him  since  first  he  read  it :  I  know  it  haunted 
me  after  I  read  it.  But  I  wonder  how  many  critics 
have  read  this  passage  in  connection  with  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  metrical  studies  which  have  been  carried 
on  in  the  '  Athenaeum '  during  more  than  a  quarter 
of  a  century.  They  are  closely  connected  with  what  he 
has  said  upon  Bible  rhythm  in  his  article  upon  the 
Psalms,  which  I  have  already  quoted,  and  in  many  other 
essays.  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  acknowledged  to  be  a 
great  authority  on  metrical  subjects,  has  for  years  been 
declaring  that  we  are  on  the  verge  of  a  new  kind  of 
metrical  art  altogether — a  metrical  art  in  which  the 
emotions  govern  the  metrical  undulations.  And  I  take 
the  above  passage  and  the  following  to  be  examples  of 
what  the  movement  in  '  Aylwin  '  would  have  been  if 
he  had  not  abandoned  the  project  of  writing  the  story  in 
metre  : — 

"  Then  quoth  the  Ka'dee,  laughing  until  his  grinders 
appeared  :  '  Rather,  by  Allah,  would  I  take  all  the 
punishment  thou  dreadest,  thou  most  false  donkey- 
driver  of  the  Ruby  Hills,  than  believe  this  story  of  thine 


344         Imaginative  and    Didactic   Prose 

— this  mad,  mad  story,  that  she  with  whom  thou  wast 
seen  was  not  the  Uving  wife  of  Hasan  here  (as  these 
four  legal  witnesses  have  sworn),  but  thine  own  dead 
spouse,  Alawiyah,  refashioned  for  thee  by  the  Angel  of 
Memory  out  of  thine  own  sorrow  and  unquenchable 
fountain  of  tears.' 

Quoth  Ja'afar,  bowing  low  his  head  :  *  Bold  is  the 
donkey-driver,  O  Ka'dee  !  and  bold  the  Ka'dee  who 
dares  say  what  he  will  believe,  what  disbelieve — not 
knowing  in  any  wise  the  mind  of  Allah — not  knowing 
in  any  wise  his  own  heart  and  what  it  shall  some  day 
suffer.'  " 

Break  these  passages  up  into  irregular  lines,  and  you 
get  a  new  metre  of  a  very  emotional  kind,  governed 
as  to  length  by  the  sense  pause.  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
has  been  arguing  for  many  years  that  English  verse 
is,  as  Coleridge  long  ago  pointed  out,  properly  governed 
by  the  number  of  accents  and  not  by  the  number 
of  syllables  in  a  line,  and  that  this  accentual  system 
is  governed,  or  should  be  governed,  by  emotion.  It  is 
a  singular  thing,  by  the  bye,  that  writer  after  writer  of 
late  has  been  arguing  over  and  over  again  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  arguments,  and  seems  to  be  saying  a  new  thing 
by  using  the  word  '  stress'  for  '  accent.'  '  Stress '  may 
or  may  not  be  a  better  word  than  *  accent,'  the  word 
used  by  Coleridge,  and  after  him  by  Mr.  Watts-Dunton, 
but  the  idea  conveyed  is  one  and  the  same.  I,  for  my 
part,  believe  that  rare  as  new  ideas  may  be  in  creative 
work,  they  are  still  rarer  in  criticism. 


Chapter  XXI 

THE    METHODS    OF   PROSE    FICTION 

AND  now  a  word  upon  the  imaginative  power  of 
'  Aylwin.'  Very  mucli  has  been  written  both  in 
England  and  on  the  Continent  concerning  the  source  of 
the  peculiar  kind  of  '  imaginative  vividness '  shown  in 
the  story.  The  rushing  narrative,  as  has  been  said, 
*  is  so  fused  in  its  molten  stream  that  it  seems  one 
sentence,  and  it  carries  the  reader  irresistibly  along 
through  pictures  of  beauty  and  mystery  till  he  becomes 
breathless.'  The  truth  is,  however,  that  the  mere 
method  of  the  evolution  of  the  story  has  a  great 
deal  more  to  do  with  this  than  is  at  first  apparent. 
Upon  this  artistic  method  very  little  has  been 
written  save  what  I  myself  said  when  it  first 
appeared.  If  the  unequalled  grip  of  the  story  upon 
the  reader  had  been  secured  by  methods  as  primitive, 
as  unconscious  as  those  of  '  Jane  Eyre  '  and  '  Wuthering 
Heights,'  I  should  estimate  the  pure,  unadulterated 
imaginative  force  at  work  even  more  highly  than  I 
now  do.  But,  as  a  critic,  I  must  always  inquire 
whether  or  not  a  writer's  imaginative  vision  is  streng- 
thened by  constructive  power.  I  must  take  into  account 
the  aid  that  the  imagination  of  the  writer  has  received 
from  his  mere  self-conscious  artistic  skill.  Now  it 
is  not  to  praise  '  Aylwin,'  but,  I  fear,  to  disparage  it 
in  a  certain  sense  to  say  that  the  power  of  the  scenes 
owes  much  to  the  mere  artistic  method,  amounting  at 


346  The   Methods  of  Prose  Fiction 

times  to  subtlety.    I  have  heard  the  greatest  of  living  poets 
mention*  Tom  Jones,'  ^Waverley,'  and  ^Aylwin'  as  three 
great  novels  whose  reception  hy  the  outside  public  has  been 
endorsed  by  criticism.    One  of  the  signs  of  Scott's  unique 
genius  was  the  way  in  which  he  invented  and  carried  to 
perfection  the  method  of  moving  towards  the  denoue- 
ment by  dialogue  as  much  as  by  narrative.     This  gave  a 
source  of  new  brilliance  to  prose  fiction,  and  it  was  cer- 
tainly one  of  the  most  effective  causes  of  the  enormous 
success  of  '  Waverley.'     This  masterpiece  opens,  it  will 
be  remembered,  in  distinct  imitation  of  the  method  of 
Fielding,  but  soon  broke  into  the  new  dramatic  method 
with  which  Scott's  name  is  associated.   But  in  '  Waverley' 
Scott  had  not  yet  begun  to  use  the  dramatic  method  so 
freely  as  to  sacrifice  the  very  different  qualities  imported 
into  the  novel  by  Fielding,  whose  method  was  epic  rather 
than  dramatic.     I  think  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has  himself 
somewhere  commented  upon  this,  and  said  that  Scott 
carried  the  dramatic  method  quite  as  far  as  it  could  go 
without  making  the  story  suffer  from  that  kind  of  stagey- 
ness  and  artificial  brightness  which  is  fatal  to  the  novel. 
Scott's  disciple,  Dumas,  a  more  brilliant  writer  of  dia- 
logue than  Scott  himself,  but  not  so  true  a  one,  carried 
the  dramatic  method  too  far  and    opened    the  way  to 
mimics,  who   carried  it   further  still.     In  '  Aylwin,'  the 
blending  of  the  two  methods,  the  epic  and  the  dramatic, 
is  so  skilfully  done  as  to  draw  all  the  advantages  that  can 
be  drawn  from  both  ;  and  this  skill  must  be  an  enormous 
aid  to  the  imaginative  vision — an  aid  which  Charlotte 
and  Emily  Bronte  had  to  dispense  with  :  but  it  is  in  the 
arrangement  of  the  material  on  self-conscious  construc- 
tive principles  that  I  am  chiefly  thinking  when  I  com- 
pare the  imaginative  vision   in  '  Aylwin  '  with  that  in 
*  Jane     Eyre '     and     '  Wuthering     Heights.'      On     the 


The  Method  of  'Jane   Eyre'  347 

whole,  no  one  seems  to  have  studied  '  Aylwin  '  from  all 
points  of  view  with  so  much  insight  as  Madame  Galim- 
berti,  unless  it  be  M.  Jacottet  in  '  La  Semaine  Litter- 
aire.'      Mr.  Watts-Dunton  in  one  of  his  essays  has  him- 
self remarked  that  nine-tenths  of  the  interest  of    any 
dramatic  situation  are  lost  if  before  approaching  it  the 
reader  has  not  been  made  to  feel  an  interest  in  the  char- 
acters, as  Fielding  makes  us  feel  an  interest  in  Tom  and 
Sophia  long  before  they  utter  a  word — indeed,  long  be- 
fore they  are  introduced  at  all.     This  is  true,  no  doubt, 
and  the  contemporary  method  of  beginning  a  story  like 
the  opening  of  a  play  with  long  dialogues  between  char- 
acters that  are  strangers  to  the  reader,  is  one  among  the 
many  signs  that,  so  far  as  securing  illusion  goes,  there  is  a 
real  retrogression  in  fictive  art.     A  play,  of  course,  must 
open  in  this  way,  but  in  an  acted  play  the  characters 
come  bodily  before  the  audience  as  real  flesh  and  blood. 
They  come  surrounded  by  real  accessories.     They  win 
our  sympathy  or  else  our  dislike  as  soon  as  we  see  them 
and  hear  them  speak.     The  dramatic  scenes  between  Jane 
Eyre  and  Rochester  would  miss  half  their  effect  were  it  not 
for  the  picture  of  Jane  as  a  child.     In  *  Aylwin,'  by  the 
time  that  there  is  any  introduction  of  dramatic  dialogue  the 
atmosphere  of  the  story  has  enveloped  us  :  we  have  be- 
come so  deeply  in  love  with  the  two  children  that  the  most 
commonplace  words  from  their  lips  would  have  seemed 
charged  with  beauty.      This  kind  of  perfection  of  the 
novelist's  art,  in  these  days  when  stories  are  written  to 
pass  through  magazines  and  newspapers,  seemed  impos- 
sible till  '  Aylwin  '  appeared.      It  is  curious  to  speculate 
as  to  what  would  have  been  the  success  of  the  opening 
chapters   of  'Aylwin'   if  an  instalment  of  the  story  had 
first  made  its  appearance  in  a  magazine. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  features  of  '  Aylwin  '  is 


34^  The  Methods  of  Prose  Fiction 

that  in  spite  of  the  strength  and  originaHty  of  the  mere 
story  and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  book  is  fundament- 
ally the  expression  of  a  creed,  the  character  painting  does 
not  in  the  least  suffer  from  these  facts.  Striking  and  new 
as  the  story  is,  there  is  nothing  mechanical  about  the 
structure.  The  characters  are  not,  to  use  a  well  known 
phrase  of  the  author's,  *  plot-ridden  '  in  the  least  de- 
gree, as  are  the  characters  of  the  great  masters  of  the 
plot-novel,  Lytton,  Charles  Reade,  and  Wilkie  Col- 
lins, to  mention  only  those  who  are  no  longer  with  us. 
Perhaps  in  order  to  show  what  I  mean  I  ought  to  go 
a  little  into  detail  here.  In  *  Man  and  Wife,'  for  in- 
stance, Collins,  with  his  eye  only  upon  his  plot,  makes 
the  heroine,  a  lady  whose  delicacy  of  mind  and  nobility 
of  character  are  continually  dwelt  upon,  not  only  by  the 
author  but  by  a  sagacious  man  of  the  world  like  Sir  Peter, 
who  afterwards  marries  her,  succumb  to  the  animal 
advances  of  a  brute  like  Geoffrey.  Many  instances  of 
the  same  sacrifice  of  everything  to  plot  occur  in  most 
of  Collins's  other  stories,  and  as  to  the  '  long  arm  of 
coincidence  '  he  not  only  avails  himself  of  that  arm  when- 
ever it  is  convenient  to  do  so,  but  he  positively  revels  in 
his  slavery  to  it.  In  '  Armadale,'  for  instance,  besides 
scores  of  monstrous  improbabilities,  such  as  the  ship  *  La 
Grace  de  Dieu  '  coming  to  Scotland  expressly  that  Allan 
Armadale  should  board  her  and  have  a  dream  upon  her, 
and  such  as  Midwinter's  being  by  accident  brought  in- 
to touch  with  Allan  in  a  remote  village  in  Devonshire 
when  he  was  upon  the  eve  of  death,  we  find  coincidences 
which  are  not  of  the  smallest  use,  introduced  simply 
because  the  author  loves  coincidences — such  as  that  of 
making  a  family  connection  of  Armadale's  rescue  Miss 
Gwilt  from  drowning  and  get  drowned  himself,  and  thus 
bring  about  the  devolution  of  the  property  upon  Allan 


Sinister   Circumstance   as  Villain         349 

Armadale — an  entirely  superfluous  coincidence,  for  the 
working  power  of  this  incident  could  have  been  secured 
in   countless   other   ways.      *  No  Name '   bristles    with 
coincidences,  such  as  that  most  impudent  one  where  the 
heroine  is  at  the  point  of  death  by  destitution,  and  the 
one  man  who  loves  her  and  who  had  just  returned  to 
England  passes  down  the  obscure  and  squalid  street  he 
had  never  seen  before  at  the  very  moment  when  she  is 
sinking.     It  is  the  same  with  Bulwer  Lytton's  novels. 
In  '  Night  and  Morning,'  for  instance,  people  are  tossed 
against  each  other  in  London,  the  country,  or  Paris  at 
every  moment  whensoever  the  story  demands  it.     As  to 
Gawtry,  one  of  the  few  really  original  villains  in  modern 
fiction,  as  soon  as  the  story  opens  we  expect  him  to  turn 
up  every  moment  like  a  jack  in-the-box  ;  we  expect  him 
to  meet  the  hero  in  the  most  unlikely  places,  and  to  meet 
every  other  character  in  the  same  way.     Let  his  presence 
be  required,  and  we  know  that  he  will  certainly  turn 
up  to  put  things  right.     But  in  *  Aylwin,'  which  has 
been  well  called  by  a  French  critic,  '  a  novel  without  a 
villain,'  where  sinister  circumstance  takes  the  place  of 
the  villain,  there  is  not  a  single  improbable  coincidence ; 
everything  flows  from    a    few    simple   causes,   such   as 
the  effect  upon  an  English  patrician  of  love   baflled  by 
all  kinds  of  fantastic  antagonisms,  the    influence  of  the 
doctrines  of  the  dead  father  upon  the  minds  of  several 
individuals,  and   the  influence  of    the    impact   of    the 
characters    upon   each   other.     Another   thing  to  note 
is  that  in  spite  of  the  strange,  new  scenes  in  which   the 
characters    move,    they   all   display    that    '  softness    of 
touch  '  upon  which   the    author  has  himself  written  so 
eloquently  in  one  of  his  articles  in  the  '  Athenaeum.'     I 
must  find  room  to  quote  his  words  on  this  interesting 
subject  : — 


2S^  The  Methods  of  Prose  Fiction 

"  The  secret  of  the  character-drawing  of  the  great 
masters  seems  to  be  this  :  while  moulding  the  character 
from  broad  general  elements,  from  universal  types  of 
humanity,  they  are  able  to  delude  the  reader's  imagina- 
tion into  mistaking  the  picture  for  real  portraiture,  and 
this  they  achieve  by  making  the  portrait  seem  to  be  drawn 
from  particular  and  peculiar  traits  instead  of  from  gener- 
alities, and  especially  by  hiding  away  all  purposes — 
aesthetic,  ethic,  or  political. 

One  great  virtue  of  the  great  masters  is  their  winsome 
softness  of  touch  in  character  drawing.  We  are  not  fond  of 
comparing  literary  work  with  pictorial  art,  but  between  the 
work  of  the  novelist  and  the  work  of  the  portrait  painter 
there  does  seem  a  true  analogy  as  regards  the  hardness 
and  softness  of  touch  in  the  drawing  of  characters.  In 
landscape  painting  that  hardness  which  the  general  public 
love  is  a  fault ;  but  in  portrait  painting  so  important  is 
it  to  avoid  hardness  that  unless  the  picture  seems  to  have 
been  blown  upon  the  canvas,  as  in  the  best  work  of  Gains- 
borough, rather  than  to  have  been  laid  upon  it  by  the 
brush,  the  painter  has  not  achieved  a  perfect  success.  In 
the  imaginative  literature  of  England  the  two  great  mas- 
ters of  this  softness  of  touch  in  portraiture  are  Addison  and 
Sterne.  Three  or  four  hardly-drawn  lines  in  Sir  Roger  or 
the  two  Shandys,or  Corporal  Trim,  would  have  ruined  the 
portraits  so  completely  that  they  would  never  have  come 
down  to  us.  Close  upon  Addison  comes  Scott,  in  whose 
vast  gallery  almost  every  portrait  is  painted  with  a  Gains- 
borough softness.  Scarcely  one  is  limned  with  those  hard 
lines  which  are  too  often  apt  to  mar  the  glorious  work 
of  Dickens.  After  Scott  comes  Thackeray  or  Fielding, 
unless  it  be  Mrs.  Gaskell.  We  are  not  in  this  article  deal- 
ing with,  or  even  alluding  to,  contemporary  writers,  or 
we  might  easily  say  what  novelists  follow  Mrs.  Gaskell." 


Varieties   of  Life   Depicted  351 

Read  in  the  light  of  these  remarks  the  characters  in 
*  Aylwin  '  become  still  more  interesting  to  the  critic. 
Observe  how  soft  is  the  touch  of  the  writer  compared 
with  that  of  a  novelist  of  real  though  eccentric  genius, 
Charles  Reade.  Now  and  again  in  Reade's  portraits  we 
get  softness,  as  in  the  painting  of  the  delightful  Mrs. 
Dodd  and  her  daughter,  but  it  is  very  rare.  The  con- 
trast between  him  and  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  in  this  regard 
is  most  conspicuously  seen  in  their  treatment  of  mem- 
bers of  what  are  called  the  upper  classes.  No  doubt 
Reade  does  occasionally  catch  (what  Charles  Dickens 
never  catches)  that  unconscious  accent  of  high  breed- 
ing which  Thackeray,  with  all  his  yearning  to  catch  it, 
scarcely  ever  could  catch,  save  perhaps,  in  such  a  charac- 
ter as  Lord  Kew,  but  which  Disraeli  catches  perfectly 
in  St.  Aldegonde. 

On  the  appearance  of  '  Aylwin  '  it  was  amusing  to 
see  how  puzzled  many  of  the  critics  were  when  they  came 
to  talk  about  the  various  classes  in  which  the  various 
figures  moved.  How  could  a  man  give  pictures  of  gyp- 
sies in  their  tents,  East  Enders  in  their  slums,  Bohemian 
painters  in  their  studios,  aristocrats  in  their  country 
houses,  and  all  of  them  with  equal  vividness  ?  But  vivid- 
ness is  not  always  truth.  Some  wondered  whether  the 
gypsies  were  true,  when  '  up  and  spake  '  the  famous 
Tarno  Rye  himself,  Groome,  the  greatest  authority  on 
gypsies  in  the  world,  and  said  they  were  true  to  the  life. 
Following  him,  '  up  and  spake  '  Gypsy  Smith,  and  pro- 
claimed them  to  be  '  the  only  pictures  of  the  gypsies  that 
were  true.'  Some  wondered  whether  the  painters  and 
Bohemians  were  rightly  painted,  when  '  up  and  spake  ' 
Mr.  Hake — more  intimately  acquainted  with  them  than 
any  living  man  left  save  W.  M.  Rossetti  and  Mr.  Sharp — 
and  said  the  pictures  were  as  true  as  photographs.     But 


352  The  Methods  of  Prose  Fiction 

before  I  pass  on  I  must  devote  a  few  parenthetical  words 
to  the  most  curious  thing  connected  with  this  matter. 
Not  even  the  most  captious  critic,  as  far  as  I  remember, 
ventured  to  challenge  the  manners  of  the  patricians  who 
play  such  an  important  part  in  the  story.  The  Aylwin 
family,  as  Madame  Galimberti  has  hinted,  belonged  to 
the  only  patriciate  which  either  Landor  or  Disraeli  recog- 
nized :  the  old  landed  untitled  gentry.  The  best  delin- 
eator of  this  class  is,  of  course,  Whyte  Melville.  But  those 
who  have  read  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  remarks  upon  Byron 
in  Chambers's  '  Cyclopaedia  of  English  Literature  '  will 
understand  how  thoroughly  he  too  has  studied  this  most 
interesting  class.  The  hero  himself,  in  spite  of  all  his 
eccentricity  and  in  spite  of  all  his  Bohemianism,  is  a  patri- 
cian— a  patrician  to  the  very  marrow.  '  There  is  not 
throughout  Aylwin's  narrative — a  narrative  running  to 
something  under  200,000  words — a  single  wrong  note.' 
This  opinion  I  heard  expressed  by  a  very  eminent 
writer,  who  from  his  own  birth  and  environment  can 
speak  with  authority.  The  way  in  which  Henry  Aylwin 
as  a  child  is  made  to  feel  that  his  hob-a-nobbing  on  equal 
terms  with  the  ragamuffin  of  the  sands  cannot  really 
degrade  an  English  gentleman  ;  the  way  in  which  Henry 
Aylwin,  the  hobbledehoy,  is  made  to  feel  that  he  cannot 
be  lowered  by  living  with  gypsies,  or  by  marrying  the 
daughter  of  '  the  drunken  organist  who  violated  my 
father's  tomb  ' ;  the  way  in  which  he  says  that  '  if 
society  rejects  him  and  his  wife,  he  shall  reject 
society  ' ; — all  this  shows  a  mastery  over  '  softness  of 
touch '  in  depicting  this  kind  of  character  such  as 
not  even  Whyte  Melville  has  equalled.  Henry  Aylwin's 
mother,  to  whom  the  word  trade  and  plebeianism  were 
synonymous  terms,  is  the  very  type  of  the  grande  dame, 
untouched  by  the  vulgarities  of  the   smart  set  of  her 


London   Society  353 

time  (for  there  were  vulgar  smart  sets  then  as  there  were 
vulgar  smart  sets  in  the  time  of  Beau  Brummell,  and  as 
there  are  vulgar  smart  sets  now).  Then  there  is  that 
wonderful  aunt,  of  whom  we  see  so  little  but  whose  in- 
fluence is  so  great  and  so  mischievous.  What  a  type  is 
she  of  the  meaner  and  more  withered  branch  of  a  patri- 
cian tree  !  But  the  picture  of  Lord  Sleaford  is  by  far 
the  most  vivid  portrait  of  a  nobleman  that  has  appeared 
in  any  novel  since  '  Lothair.'  Thackeray  never  '  knocked 
off  '  a  nobleman  so  airily  and  so  unconsciously  as  this  de- 
lightful lordling,  whose  portrait  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has 
'  blown '  upon  his  canvas  in  the  true  Gainsborough  way. 
I  wish  I  could  have  got  permission  to  give  more  than  a 
bird's-eye  glance  at  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  wide  experience 
of  all  kinds  of  life,  but  I  can  only  touch  upon  what  the 
reading  public  is  already  familiar  with.  At  one  period 
of  his  life — the  period  during  which  he  and  Whistler  were 
brought  together — the  period  when  '  Piccadilly,'  upon 
which  they  were  both  engaged,  was  having  its  brief  run, 
Mr.Watts-Dunton  mixed  very  largely  with  what  was  then, 
as  now,  humourously  called  '  Society.'  It  has  been  said 
that  '  for  a  few  years  not  even  "Dicky  Doyle"  or  Jimmy 
Whistler  went  about  quite  so  much  as  Theodore  Watts.' 
I  have  seen  Whistler's  presentation  copy  of  the  first 
edition  of  '  The  Gentle  Art  of  Making  Enemies  ' 
with  this  inscription  :  —  '  To  Theodore  Watts,  the 
Worldling.'  Below  this  polite  flash  of  persiflage  the 
famous  butterfly  flaunts  its  elusive  wings.  But  this  was 
only  Whistler's  fun.  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  was  never,  we 
may  be  sure,  a  worldling.  Still  one  wonders  that  the 
most  romantic  of  poets  ever  fell  so  low  as  to  go  into 
'  Society  '  with  a  big  S.  Perhaps  it  was  because,  having 
studied  life  among  the  gypsies,  life  among  the  artists, 
life  among  the  literary  men  of  the  old  Bohemia,  life  among 
w.-D.  23 


354         The  Methods  of  Prose  Fiction 

the  professional  and  scientific  classes,  he  thought  he 
would  study  the  butterflies  too.  However,  he  seems 
soon  to  have  got  satiated,  for  he  suddenly  dropped  out  of 
the  smart  Paradise.  I  mention  this  episode  because  it 
alone,  apart  from  the  power  of  his  dramatic  imagination, 
is  sufficient  to  show  why  in  Henry  Aylwin  he  has  so 
successfully  painted  for  us  the  finest  picture  that  has  ever 
been  painted  of  a  true  English  gentleman  tossed  about 
in  scenes  and  among  people  of  all  sorts  and  retaining 
the  pristine  bloom  of  England's  patriciate  through  it  all. 

In  my  essay  upon  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  in  Chambers's 
*  Cyclopaedia  of  English  Literature,'  I  made  this  re- 
mark : — "  Notwithstanding  the  vogue  of  *  Aylwin,'  there 
is  no  doubt  that  it  is  on  his  poems,  such  as  '  The  Com- 
ing of  Love,'  '  Christmas  at  the  Mermaid,'  '  Prophetic 
Pictures  at  Venice,'  '  John  the  Pilgrim,'  *  The  Omni- 
potence of  Love,'  '  The  Three  Fausts,'  '  What  the  Silent 
Voices  Said,'  '  Apollo  in  Paris,'  '  The  Wood-haunters' 
Dream,'  '  The  Octopus  of  the  Golden  Isles,'  '  The  Last 
Walk  with  Jowett  from  Boar's  Hill,'  and  '  Omar  Khay- 
yam,' that  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  future  position  will 
mainly  rest." 

I  did  not  say  this  rashly.  But  in  order  to  justify 
my  opinion  I  must  quote  somewhat  copiously  from  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton's  remarks  upon  absolute  and  relative  vision, 
in  the  '  Encyclopaedia  Britannica.'  It  has  been  well 
said  that  'in  judging  of  the  seeing  power  of  any  work 
of  imagination,  either  in  prose  or  in  verse,  it  is  now 
necessary  always  to  try  the  work  by  the  critical  canons 
upon  absolute  and  relative  vision  laid  down  in  this 
treatise.'  If  we  turn  to  it,  we  shall  find  that  absolute 
vision  is  defined  to  be  that  vision  which  in  its  highest 
dramatic  exercise  is  unconditioned  by  the  personal  tem- 
perament of  the  writer,  while  relative  vision  is  defined  to 


Absolute  and   Relative   Vision  355 

be  that  vision  which  is  more  or  less  conditioned  by  the 
personal  temperament  of  the  writer.  And  then  follows 
a  long  discussion  of  various  great  imaginative  works  in 
which  the  two  kinds  of  vision  are  seen  : — 

"  For  the  achievement  of  most  imaginative  work 
relative  vision  will  suffice.  If  we  consider  the  matter 
thoroughly,  in  many  forms — which  at  first  sight  might 
seem  to  require  absolute  vision — we  shall  find  nothing 
but  relative  vision  at  work.  Between  relative  and  abso- 
lute vision  the  difference  is  this,  that  the  former  only 
enables  the  imaginative  writer  even  in  its  very  highest 
exercise,  to  make  his  own  individuality,  or  else  humanity 
as  represented  by  his  own  individuality,  live  in  the 
imagined  situation  ;  the  latter  enables  him  in  its  highest 
exercise  to  make  special  individual  characters  other  than 
the  poet's  own  live  in  the  imagined  situation.  In  the 
very  highest  reaches  of  imaginative  writing  art  seems 
to  become  art  no  longer — it  seems  to  become  the  very 
voice  of  Nature  herself.  The  cry  of  Priam  when  he 
puts  to  his  lips  the  hand  that  slew  his  son,  is  not  merely 
the  cry  of  a  bereaved  and  aged  parent ;  it  is  the  cry 
of  the  individual  king  of  Troy,  and  expresses  above 
everything  else  that  most  na'ive,  pathetic,  and  winsome 
character.  Put  the  cry  into  the  mouthy  of  the  irascible 
and  passionate  Lear,  and  it  would  be  entirely  out  of 
keeping.  While  the  poet  of  relative  vision,  even  in 
its  very  highest  exercise,  can  only,  when  depicting  the 
external  world,  deal  with  the  general,  the  poet  of  abso- 
lute vision  can  compete  with  Nature  herself  and  deal 
with  both  general  and  particular." 

Now,  the  difference  between  '  The  Coming  of  Love  ' 
and  '  Aylwin  '  is  this,  that  in  '  Aylwin  '  the  impulse  is, 


356  The  Methods   of  Prose  Fiction 

or  seems  to  be,  lyrical,  and  therefore  too  egoistic  for  abso- 
lute vision  to  be  achieved.  Of  course,  if  we  are  to  take 
Henry  Aylwin  in  the  novel  to  be  an  entirely  dramatic  char- 
acter, then  that  character  is  so  full  of  vitality  that  it  is 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  instances  of  purely  dramatic 
imagination  that  we  have  had  in  modern  times.  For 
there  is  nothing  that  he  says  or  does  that  is  not  inevitable 
from  the  nature  of  the  character  placed  in  the  dramatic 
situation.  Those  who  are  as  familiar  as  I  am  with  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton's  prose  writings  outside  '  Aylwin '  find 
it  extremely  difficult  to  identify  the  brilliant  critic  of 
the  '  Athenaeum,'  full  of  ripe  wisdom  and  sagacity, 
with  the  impassioned  boy  of  the  story.  Indeed,  I  should 
never  have  dreamed  of  identifying  the  character  with 
the  author  any  more  than  I  should  have  thought  of 
identifying  Philip  Aylwin  with  the  author  had  it  not 
been  for  the  fact  that  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  in  his  preface 
to  one  of  the  constantly  renewed  editions  of  his  book,  seems 
to  suggest  that  identification  himself.  I  have  already 
quoted  the  striking  passage  in  the  introduction  to  the 
later  editions  of  the  book  in  which  this  identification 
seems  to  be  suggested.  But,  matters  being  as  they 
are  with  regard  to  the  identification  of  the  hero  of 
the  prose  story  with  the  author,  it  is  to  '  The  Coming 
of  Love  '  that  we  must  for  the  most  part  turn  for 
proof  that  the  writer  is  possessed  of  absolute  vision. 
Percy  Aylwin  and  Rhona  are  there  presented  in  the 
purely  dramatic  way,  and  they  give  utterance  to  their 
emotions,  not  only  untrammelled  by  the  lyricism  of 
the  dramatist,  but  untrammelled  also,  as  I  have  before 
remarked,  by  the  exigencies  of  a  conscious  dramatic 
structure.  In  no  poetry  of  our  time  can  there  be 
seen  more  of  that  absolute  vision  so  lucidly  discoursed 
upon  in  the   foregoing  extract.     From  her  first  love- 


Is  there   Absolute   Vision   in    *Aylwin'?    357 

letter  Rhona  leaps  into  life,  and  she  seems  to  be  more 
elaborately  painted  not  only  than  any  woman  in  recent 
poetry,  but  any  woman  in  recent  literature.  Percy 
Aylwin  lives  also  with  almost  equal  vitality.  I  need 
not  give  examples  of  this  here,  for  later  I  shall  quote 
freely  from  the  poem  in  order  that  the  reader  may 
form  his  own  judgment,  unbiassed  by  the  views  of 
myself  or  any  other  critic. 

With  regard  to  '  Aylwin,'  however,  apart  from  the 
character  of  the  hero,  who  is  drawn  lyrically  or  dramati- 
cally, according,  as  I  have  said,  to  the  evidence 
that  he  is  or  is  not  the  author  himself,  there  are  still 
many  instances  of  a  vision  that  may  be  called  absolute. 
Among  the  many  letters  from  strangers  that  reached 
the  author  when  '  Aylwin '  first  appeared  was  one  from 
a  person  who,  like  Henry  Aylwin,  had  been  made  lame 
by  accident.  This  gentleman  said  that  he  felt  sure 
that  the  author  of  '  Aylwin  '  had  also  been  lame,  and 
gave  several  instances  from  the  story  which  had  made 
him  come  to  this  conclusion.     One  was  the  following  : — 

"  '  Shall  we  go  and  get  some  strawberries  ?  '  she  said, 
as  we  passed  to  the  back  of  the  house.  '  They  are  quite 
ripe.' 

But  my  countenance  fell  at  this.  I  was  obliged  to 
tell  her  that  I  could  not  stoop. 

'  Ah  !  but  I  can,  and  I  will  pluck  them  and  give 
them  to  you.  I  should  like  to  do  it.  Do  let  me,  there's 
a  good  boy.' 

I  consented,  and  hobbled  by  her  side  to  the  verge 
of  the  strawberry-beds.  But  when  I  foolishly  tried  to 
follow  her,  I  stuck  ignominiously,  with  my  crutches 
sunk  deep  in  the  soft  mould  of  rotten  leaves.  Here 
was  a   trial  for  the  conquering  hero  of  the   coast.     I 


358  The  Methods  of  Prose  Fiction 

looked  into  her  face  to  see  if  there  was  not,  at  last,  a 
laugh  upon  it.  That  cruel  human  laugh  was  my  only 
dread.  To  everything  but  ridicule  I  had  hardened 
myself ;  but  against  that  I  felt  helpless. 

I  looked  into  her  face  to  see  if  she  was  laughing  at 
my  lameness.  No  :  her  brows  were  merely  knit  with 
anxiety  as  to  how  she  might  best  relieve  me.  This 
surpassingly  beautiful  child,  then,  had  evidently  accepted 
me — lameness  and  all — crutches  and  all — as  a  subject  of 
peculiar  interest. 

As  I  slowly  approached  the  child,  I  could  see  by  her 
forehead  (which  in  the  sunshine  gleamed  like  a  globe  of 
pearl),  and  especially  by  her  complexion,  that  she  was 
uncommonly  lovely,  and  I  was  afraid  lest  she  should 
look  down  before  I  got  close  to  her,  and  so  see  my 
crutches  before  her  eyes  encountered  my  face." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  author  never 
had  been  lame. 

The  following  passages  have  often  been  quoted  as 
instances  of  the  way  in  which  a  wonderful  situation  is 
realized  as  thoroughly  as  if  it  had  been  of  the  most 
commonplace  kind  : — 

"  And  what  was  the  effect  upon  me  of  these  commun- 
ings with  the  ancestors  whose  superstitions  I  have, 
perhaps,  been  throughout  this  narrative  treating  in  a 
spirit  that  hardly  becomes  their  descendant  ? 

The  best  and  briefest  way  of  answering  this  question 
is  to  confess  not  what  I  thought,  as  I  went  on  studying 
my  father's  book,  its  strange  theories  and  revelations, 
but  what  I  did.  I  read  the  book  all  day  long  :  I  read 
it  all  the  next  day.  I  cannot  say  what  days  passed. 
One  night  I  resumed  my  wanderings  in  the  streets  for 


Is  there  Absolute  Vision  in  '  Aylwin  '  ?     359 

an  hour  or  two,  and  then  returned  home  and  went  to 
bed — but  not  to  sleep.  For  me  there  was  no  more  sleep 
till  those  ancestral  voices  could  be  quelled — till  the 
sound  of  Winnie's  song  in  the  street  could  be  stopped  in 
my  ears.  For  very  relief  from  them  I  again  leapt  out  of 
bed,  lit  a  candle,  unlocked  the  cabinet,  and,  taking  out 
the  amulet,  proceeded  to  examine  the  facets  as  I  did 
once  before  when  I  heard  in  the  Swiss  cottage  these 
words  of  my  stricken  father —  z^^ 

'  Should  you  ever  come  to  love  as  I  have  loved,  you 
will  find  that  materialism  is  intolerable — is  hell  itself — 
to  the  heart  that  has  known  a  passion  like  mine.  You 
will  find  that  it  is  madness,  Hal,  madness,  to  believe  in 
the  word  "  never  "  !  You  will  find  that  you  dare  not 
leave  untried  any  creed,  howsoever  wild,  that  offers  the 
heart  a  ray  of  hope.' 

And  then  while  the  candle  burnt  out  dead  in  the 
socket  I  sat  in  a  waking  dream. 

The  bright  light  of  morning  was  pouring  through  the 
window.  I  gave  a  start  of  horror,  and  cried,  '  Whose 
face  ?  '  Opposite  to  me  there  seemed  to  be  sitting  on  a 
bed  the  figure  of  a  man  with  a  fiery  cross  upon  his  breast. 
That  strange  wild  light  upon  the  face,  as  if  the  pains  at 
the  heart  were  flickering  up  through  the  flesh — where 
had  I  seen  it  ?  For  a  moment  when,  in  Switzerland, 
my  father  bared  his  bosom  to  me,  that  ancestral  flame 
had  flashed  up  into  his  dull  lineaments.  But  upon  the 
picture  of  '  The  Sibyl '  in  the  portrait-gallery  that 
illumination  was  perpetual  ! 

*  It  is  merely  my  own  reflex  in  a  looking-glass,'  I 
exclaimed. 

Without  knowing  it  I  had  slung  the  cross  round  my 
neck. 

And  then  Sinfi  Lovell's  voice  seemed   murmuring  in 


360  The   Methods  of  Prose  Fiction 

my  ears,  *  Fenella  Stanley's  dead  and  dust,  and  that's 
why  she  can  make  you  put  that  cross  in  your  feyther's 
tomb,  and  she  will,  she  will.' 

I  turned  the  cross  round  :  the  front  of  it  was  now 
next  to  my  skin.  Sharp  as  needles  were  those  diamond 
and  ruby  points  as  I  sat  and  gazed  in  the  glass.  Slowly 
a  sensation  arose  on  my  breast,  of  pain  that  was  a  pleasure 
wild  and  new.  I  was  feeling  the  facets.  But  the  tears 
trickling  down,  salt,  through  my  moustache  were  tears 
of  laughter  ;  for  Sinfi  Lovell  seemed  again  murmuring, 
*  For  good  or  for  ill,  you  must  dig  deep  to  bury  your 
daddy.'     .     .     . 

What  thoughts  and  what  sensations  were  mine  as  I 
sat  there,  pressing  the  sharp  stones  into  my  breast, 
thinking  of  her  to  whom  the  sacred  symbol  had  come, 
not  as  a  blessing,  but  as  a  curse — what  agonies  were 
mine  as  I  sat  there  sobbing  the  one  word  '  Winnie  ' — 
could  be  understood  by  myself  alone,  the  latest  blossom 
of  the  passionate  blood  that  for  generations  had  brought 
bliss  and  bale  to  the  Aylwins.    .     .     . 

I  cannot  tell  what  I  felt  and  thought,  but  only  what 
I  did.  And  while  I  did  it  my  reason  was  all  the  time 
scoffing  at  my  heart  (for  whose  imperious  behoof  the 
wild,  mad  things  I  am  about  to  record  were  done) — 
scoffing,  as  an  Asiatic  malefactor  will  sometimes  scoff  at 
the  executioner  whose  pitiless  and  conquering  saw  is 
severing  his  bleeding  body  in  twain.  I  arose  and  mur- 
mured ironically  to  Fenella  Stanley  as  I  wrapped  the 
cross  in  a  handkerchief  and  placed  it  in  a  hand-valise  : 
'  Secrecy  is  the  first  thing  for  us  sacrilegists  to  consider, 
dear  Sibyl,  in  placing  a  valuable  jewel  in  a  tomb  in  a 
deserted  church.  To  take  any  one  into  our  confidence 
would  be  impossible  ;  we  must  go  alone.  But  to  open 
the  tomb  and  close  it  again,  and  leave  no  trace  of  what 


Is   there    Absolute  Vision   in   *  Aylwin '  ?    361 

has  been  done,  will  require  all  our  skill.  And  as  burglars' 
jemmies  are  not  on  open  sale  we  must  buy,  on  our  way  to 
the  railway-station,  screw-drivers,  chisels,  a  hammer, 
and  a  lantern  ;  for  who  should  know  better  than  you, 
dear  Sibyl,  that  the  palace  of  Nin-ki-gal  is  dark.'  " 

But  after  all  I  am  unable  to  express  any  opinion  worth 
expressing  upon  the  chief  point  which  would  decide  the 
question  as  to  whether  the  imagination  at  work  in 
'  Aylwin  '  and  '  The  Coming  of  Love  '  is  lyrical  or 
dramatic,  because  I  do  not  know  whether,  like  Henry 
Aylwin  and  Percy  Aylwin,  the  author  has  a  dash  of 
Romany  blood  in  his  veins.  If  he  has  not  that  dash,  and 
I  certainly  never  heard  that  he  has,  and  neither  Groome's 
words  in  the  ^  Bookman  '  nor  '  Gypsy  Smith's  '  words 
can  be  construed  into  an  expression  of  opinion  on  the 
subject,  then  I  will  say  with  confidence  that  his  delinea- 
tion of  two  English  gentleman  with  an  ancestral  Romany 
strain  so  like  and  yet  so  unlike  as  Henry  Aylwin  and  Percy 
Aylwin  could  only  have  been  achieved  by  a  wonderful  ex- 
ercise of  absolute  vision.  It  was  this  that  struck  the  late 
Grant  Allen  so  forcibly.  On  the  other  hand,  if  he  has 
that  strain,  then,  as  I  have  said  before,  it  is  not  in  the 
story  but  in  the  poem  that  we  must  look  for  the  best 
dramatic  character  drawing.  On  this  most  interesting 
subject  no  one  can  speak  but  himself,  and  he  has  not 
spoken.  But  here  is  what  he  has  said  upon  the  similarity 
and  the  contrast  between  Percy  and  Henry  Aylwin  : — 

"  Certain  parts  of  '  The  Coming  of  Love  '  were  written 
about  the  same  time  as  '  Aylwin.'  The  two  Aylwins, 
Henry  and  Percy,  were  then  very  distinct  in  my  own 
mind  ;  they  are  very  distinct  now.  And  I  confess  that 
the  possibility  of  their  being  confounded  with  each  other 


362  The  Methods  of  Prose  Fiction 

had  never  occurred  to  me.  A  certain  similarity  be- 
tween the  two  there  must  needs  be,  seeing  that  the  blood 
of  the  same  Romany  ancestress,  Fenella  Stanley,  flows  in 
the  veins  of  both.  I  say  there  must  needs  be  this  simi- 
larity, because  the  ancestress  was  Romany.  For,  without 
starting  the  inquiry  here  as  to  whether  or  not  the  Ro- 
manies as  a  race  are  superior  or  inferior  to  all  or  any  of 
the  great  European  races  among  which  they  move,  I  will 
venture  to  affirm  that  in  the  Romanies  the  mysterious 
energy  which  the  evolutionists  call  '  the  prepotency  of 
transmission  '  in  races  is  specially  strong — so  strong,  in- 
deed, that  evidences  of  Romany  blood  in  a  family  may 
be  traced  down  for  several  generations.  It  is  inevitable, 
therefore,  that  in  each  of  the  descendants  of  Fenella 
Stanley  the  form  taken  by  the  love-passion  should  show 
itself  in  kindred  ways.  But  the  reader  who  will  give  a 
careful  study  to  the  characters  of  Henry  and  Percy 
Aylwin  will  come  to  the  conclusion,  I  think,  that  the 
similarity  between  the  two  is  observable  in  one  aspect  of 
their  characters  only.  The  intensity  of  the  love-passion 
in  each  assumes  a  spiritualizing  and  mystical  form." 


Chapter  XXII 

A    STORY   WITH   TWO   HEROINES 

ONE  thing  seems  clear  to  me  :  having  fully  intended 
to  make  Winifred  the  heroine  of  '  Alwyn  '  round 
whom  the  main  current  of  interest  should  revolve,  the 
author  failed  to  do  so.  And  the  reason  of  his  failure 
is  that  Winifred  has  to  succumb  to  the  superior  vitality 
of  Sinfi's  commanding  figure.  For  the  purpose  of  telling 
the  story  of  Winifred  and  bringing  out  her  character  he 
conceived  and  introduced  this  splendid  descendant  of 
Fenella  Stanley,  and  then  found  her,  against  his  will, 
growing  under  his  hand  until,  at  last,  she  pushed  his  own 
beloved  heroine  off  her  pedestal,  and  stood  herself  for 
all  time.  Never  did  author  love  his  heroine  ""as  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  loves  Winifred,  and  there  is  nothing  so 
curious  in  all  fiction  as  the  way  in  which  he  seems  at 
times  to  resent  Sinfi's  dominance  over  the  Welsh  hero- 
ine ;  and  this  explains  what  readers  have  sometimes  said 
about  his  '  unkindness  to  Sinfi.' 

It  is  quite  certain  that  on  the  whole  Sinfi  is  the  reader's 
heroins.  When  Madox  Brown  read  the  story  in  manu- 
script, he  became  greatly  enamoured  of  Sinfi,  and  talked 
about  her  constantly.  It  was  the  same  with  Mr.  Swin- 
burne, who  says  that  '  Aylwin  '  is  the  only  novel  he  ever 
read  in  manuscript,  and  found  it  as  absorbing  as  if  he 
were  reading  it  in  type.  Mr.  George  Meredith  in  a  letter 
said  : — "  I  am  in  love  with  Sinfi.     Nowhere  can  fiction 


364  A   Story  with  Two   Heroines 

give  us  one  to  match  her,  not  even  the  *  Kriegspiel ' 
heroine,  who  touched  me  to  the  deeps.  Winifred's  in- 
fancy has  infancy's  charm.  The  young  woman  is  taking. 
But  all  my  heart  has  gone  to  Sinfi.  Of  course  it  is  part 
of  her  character  that  her  destiny  should  point  to  the 
glooms.  The  sun  comes  to  me  again  in  her  conquering 
presence.  I  could  talk  of  her  for  hours.  The  book  has 
this  defect, —  it  leaves  in  the  mind  a  cry  for  a  successor." 
And  the  author  of  '  Kriegspiel '  himself,  F.  H.  Groome, 
accepts  Sinfi  as  the  true  heroine  of  the  story.  "  In  Sinfi 
Lovell,"  says  he,  "  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  would  have  scored 
a  magnificent  success  had  he  achieved  nothing  more  than 
this  most  splendid  figure — supremely  clever  but  utterly 
illiterate,  eloquent  but  ungrammatical,  heroic  but  alto- 
gether womanly.  Winifred  is  good,  and  so  too  is  Henry 
Aylwin  himself,  and  so  are  many  of  the  minor  characters 
(the  mother,  for  instance,  the  aunt,  and  Mrs.  Gudgeon), 
but  it  is  as  the  tragedy  of  Sinfi's  sacrifice  that  '  Aylwin  ' 
should  take  its  place  in  literature."  Yes,  it  seems  cruel 
to  tell  the  author  this,  but  Sinfi,  and  not  Winifred,  with 
all  her  charm,  is  evidently  the  favourite  of  his  English 
public.  That  admirable  novelist,  Mr.  Richard  Whiteing, 
said  in  the  '  Daily  News '  that  '  Sinfi  Lovell  is  one  of  the 
most  finished  studies  of  its  type  and  kind  in  all  romantic 
literature.' 

I  have  somewhere  seen  Sinfi  compared  with  Isopel 
Berners.  In  the  first  place,  while  Sinfi  is  the  crowning 
type  of  the  Romany  chi,  Isopel  is,  as  the  author  has 
pointed  out,  the  type  of  the  '  Anglo-Saxon  road  girl ' 
with  a  special  antagonism  to  Romany  girls.  Grand  as  is 
the  character  of  Borrow's  Isopel  Berners,  she  is  not  in 
the  least  like  Sinfi  Lovell.  And  I  may  add  that  she 
is  not  really  like  any  other  of  the  heroic  women  who 
figure  in  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  gallery  of  noble  women. 


'  S^t^.0L^h^ 


SINFl    LOYELL  AND    PHARAOH 

PAINTING      AT      THE      PINES. 


Sinfi's   '  Dauntless   Breast  *  365 

It  is^  however,  interesting  here  to  note  that  Mr.Watts- 
Dunton  has  a  special  sympathy  with  women  of  this  heroic 
type  and  a  special  strength  of  hand  in  delineating  them. 
There  is  nothing  in  them  of  Isopel's  hysterical  tears. 
Once  only  does  Sinfi,  in  the  nobility  of  her  affection 
for  Aylwin,  yield  to  weakness.  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's 
sympathy  with  this  kind  of  woman  is  apparent  in  his 
eulogy  of  *  Shirley  '  : — 

*'Note  that  it  is  not  enough  for  the  ideal  English 
girl  to  be  beautiful  and  healthy,  brilliant  and  cultivated, 
generous  and  loving  :  she  must  be  brave,  there  must  be 
in  her  a  strain  of  Valkyrie  ;  she  must  be  of  the  high  blood 
of  Brynhild,  who  would  have  taken  Odin  himself  by  the 
throat  for  the  man  she  loved.  That  is  to  say,  that, 
having  all  the  various  charms  of  English  women,  the  ideal 
English  girl  must  top  them  all  with  that  quality  which 
is  specially  the  English  man's,  just  as  the  English  hero, 
the  Nelson,  the  Sydney,  having  all  the  various  glories 
of  other  heroes,  must  top  them  all  with  that  quality 
which  is  specially  the  English  woman's — tenderness. 
What  we  mean  is,  that  there  is  a  symmetry  and  a  harmony 
in  these  matters ;  that  just  as  it  was  an  English  sailor  who 
said,  '  Kiss  me.  Hardy,'  when  dying  on  board  the 
*  Victory  ' — just  as  it  was  an  English  gentleman  who 
on  the  burning  '  Amazon,'  stood  up  one  windy  night, 
naked  and  blistered,  to  make  of  himself  a  living  screen 
between  the  flames  and  his  young  wife  ;  so  it  was  an 
Englishwoman  who  threw  her  arms  round  that  fire- 
screen, and  plunged  into  the  sea  ;  and  an  Englishwoman 
who,  when  bitten  by  a  dog,  burnt  out  the  bite  from  her 
beautiful  arm  with  a  red-hot  poker,  and  gave  special 
instructions  how  she  was  to  be  smothered  when  hydro- 
phobia should  set  in." 


366  A  Story  with  Two  Heroines 

But  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  himself,  in  his  sonnet, 
*  Brynhild  on  Sigurd's  Funeral  Pyre,'  so  powerfully 
illustrated  by  Mr.  Byam  Shaw,  has  given  us  in  fourteen 
lines  a  picture  of  feminine  courage  and  stoicism  that  puts 
even  Charlotte  Bronte's  picture  of  Shirley  in  the  shade  : — 

With  blue  eyes  fixed  on  joy  and  sorrow  past, 

Tall  Brynhild  stands  on  Sigurd's  funeral  pyre ; 

She  stoops  to  kiss  his  mouth,  though  forks  of  fire 
Rise  fighting  with  the  reek  and  wintry  blast ; 
She  smiles,  though  earth  and  sky  are  overcast 

With  shadow  of  wings  that  shudder  of  Asgard's  ire  ; 

She  weeps,  but  not  because  the  gods  conspire 
To  quell  her  soul  and  break  her  heart  at  last. 

"  Odin,"  she  cries,  "it  is  for  gods  to  droop  ! — 
Heroes  !    we  still  have  man's  all-sheltering  tomb, 
Where  cometh  peace  at  last,  whate'er  may  come  : 

Fate  falters,  yea,  the  very  Norns  shall  stoop 

Before  man's  courage,  naked,  bare  of  hope. 

Standing  against  all  Hell  and  Death  and  Doom. 

Rhona  Boswell,  too,  under  all  her  playful  humour,  is 
of  this  strain,  as  we  see  in  that  sonnet  on  '  Kissing 
the  Maybuds '  in  *  The  Coming  of  Love  '  (given  on 
page  406  of  this  book). 

As  Groome's  remarks  upon  '  Aylwin  '  are  in  many 
ways  of  special  interest,  I  will  for  a  moment  digress  from 
the  main  current  of  my  argument,  and  say  a  few  words 
about  it.  Of  course  as  the  gypsies  figure  so  largely  in 
this  story,  there  were  very  few  writers  competent  to 
review  it  from  the  Romany  point  of  view.  Leland  was 
living  when  it  appeared,  but  he  was  residing  on  the 
Continent ;  moreover,  at  his  age,  and  engrossed  as 
he  was,  it  was  not  likely  that  he  would  undertake 
to  review  it.  There  was  another  Romany  scholar, 
spoken    of    with  enthusiasm   by   Groome — I    allude    to 


Groome  on   the   Gypsies   of  '  Aylwin  *     367 

Mr.  Sampson,  of  Liverpool,  who  has  since  edited  Bor- 
row's  '  Romany  Rye  '  for  Messrs.  Methuen,  and  who 
is  said  to  know  more  of  Welsh  Romany  than  any  Eng- 
lishman ever  knew  before.  At  that  time,  however,  he 
was  almost  unknown.  Finally,  there  was  Groome 
himself,  whose  articles  in  the  '  Encyclopaedia  Britan- 
nica  '  and  '  Chambers's  Encyclopaedia,'  had  proclaimed 
him  to  be  the  greatest  living  gypsologist.  The  editor 
of  the  '  Bookman,'  being  anxious  to  get  a  review  of 
the  book  from  the  most  competent  writer  he  could 
find,  secured  Groome  himself.  I  can  give  only  a  few 
sentences  from  the  review.  Groome,  it  will  be 
seen,  does  not  miss  the  opportunity  of  flicking  in  his 
usual  satirical  manner  the  omniscience  of  some  popular 
novelists  : — 

"  Novelty  and  truth,"  he  says,  "  are  'Aylwin's '  chief 
characteristics,  a  rare  combination  nowadays.  Our  older 
novelists — those  at  least  still  held  in  remembrance — 
wrote  only  of  what  they  knew,  or  of  what  they  had  pain- 
fully mastered.  Defoe,  Richardson,  Fielding,  Smollett, 
Sterne,  Jane  Austen,  Scott,  Dickens,  Thackeray,  the 
Brontes,  and  George  Eliot  belong  to  the  foremost  rank 
of  these  ;  for  types  of  the  second  or  the  third  may  stand 
Marryat,  Lever,  Charles  Reade,  James  Grant,  Surtees, 
Whyte  Melville,  and  Wilkie  Collins.  But  now  we  have 
changed  all  that ;  the  maximum  of  achievement  seldom 
rises  above  school  board  nescience.  With  a  few  excep- 
tions (one  could  count  them  on  the  ten  fingers)  our 
present-day  novelists  seem  to  write  only  about  things  of 
which  they  clearly  know  nothing.  One  of  the  most 
popular  lays  the  scene  of  a  story  in  Paris  :  the  Seine  there 
is  tidal,  it  rolls  a  murdered  corpse  upwards.  In  another 
work  by  her  a  gambler  shoots  himself  in  a  cab.  '  I  trust,' 
cries  a  friend  who  has  heard  the   shot,  '  he  has   missed.' 


368  A  Story  with  Two  Heroines 

*  No,'  says  a  second  friend,  '  he  was  a  dead  shot.'  Mr. 
X.  writes  a  realistic  novel  about  betting.  It  is  crammed 
with  weights,  acceptances,  and  all  the  rest  of  it ;  but, 
alas !  on  an  early  page  a  servant  girl  wins  12s.  6d.  at  7  to  i. 
Mrs.  Y.  takes  her  heroine  to  a  Scottish  deer-forest  :  it  is 
full  of  primeval  oaks.  Mrs.  Z.  sends  her  hero  out  deer- 
stalking. Following  a  hill-range,  he  sights  a  stag  upon 
the  opposite  height,  fires  at  it,  and  kills  his  benefactor, 
who  is  strolling  below  in  the  glen.  And  Mr.  Ampersand 
in  his  masterpiece  shows  up  the  littleness  of  the  Estab- 
lishment :  his  ritualistic  church  presents  the  inconceivable 
conjunction  of  the  Ten  Commandments  and  a  gorgeous 
rood-screen.  I  have  drawn  upon  memory  for  these  six 
examples,  but  subscribers  to  Mudie's  should  readily 
recognize  the  books  I  mean  ;  they  have  sold  by  thousands 
on  thousands.  '  Aylwin  '  is  not  such  as  these.  There 
is  much  in  it  of  the  country,  of  open-air  life,  of  mountain 
scenery,  of  artistic  fellowship,  of  Gypsydom  ;  it  might  be 
called  the  novel  of  the  two  Bohemias. 

Many  readers  have  expressed  the  desire  to  know  some- 
thing about  the  prototypes  of  Sinfi  Lovell  and  Rhona 
Boswell.  The  following  words  from  the  Introduction  to 
the  20th  edition  (called  the  '  Snowdon  Edition  ')  may 
therefore  be  read  with  interest  : — 

"  Although  Borrow  belonged  to  a  different  generation 
from  mine,  I  enjoyed  his  intimate  friendship  in  his  later 
years — during  the  time  when  he  lived  in  Hereford  Square. 
When,  some  seven  or  eight  years  ago,  I  brought  out  an 
edition  of  *  Lavengro,'  I  prefaced  that  delightful  book  by 
a  few  desultory  remarks  upon  Borrow's  gypsy  characters. 
On  that  occasion  I  gave  a  slight  sketch  of  the  most  remark- 
able '  Romany  Chi '  that  had  ever  been  met  with  in  the 
part  of  East  Anglia  known  to  Borrow  and  myself — Sinfi 


Jean  Ingelow  and  Rhona  Boswell         369 

Lovell.  I  described  her  playing  on  the  crwth.  I  dis- 
cussed her  exploits  as  a  boxer,  and  I  contrasted  her  in 
many  ways  with  the  glorious  Anglo-Saxon  road-girl 
Isopel  Berners. 

Since  the  publication  of  '  Aylwin  '  and  *  The  Coming 
of  Love  '  I  have  received  very  many  letters  from  English 
and  American  readers  inquiring  whether  '  the  Gypsy  girl 
described  in  the  introduction  to  "  Lavengro  "  is  the 
same  as  the  Sinfi  Lovell  of  "  Aylwin,"  and  also  whether 
'  the  Rhona  Boswell  that  figures  in  the  prose  story  is  the 
same  as  the  Rhona  of  "  The  Coming  of  Love  ?  "  '  The 
evidence  of  the  reality  of  Rhona  so  impressed  itself  upon 
the  reader  that  on  the  appearance  of  Rhona's  first  letter 
in  the  '  Athenaeum,'  where  the  poem  was  printed  in  frag- 
ments, I  got  among  other  letters  one  from  the  sweet 
poet  and  adorable  woman  Jean  Ingelow,  who  was  then 
very  ill, — near  her  death  indeed, — urging  me  to  tell  her 
whether  Rhona's  love-letter  was  not  a  versification  of  a 
real  letter  from  a  real  gypsy  to  her  lover.  As  it  was 
obviously  impossible  for  me  to  answer  the  queries  in- 
dividually, I  take  this  opportunity  of  saying  that  the 
Sinfi  of  '  Aylwin '  and  the  Sinfi  described  in  my  intro- 
duction to  '  Lavengro  '  are  one  and  the  same  character — 
except  that  the  story  of  the  child  Sinfi's  weeping  for  the 
'  poor  dead  Gorgios '  in  the  churchyard,  given  in  the 
Introduction,  is  really  told  by  the  gypsies,  not  of  Sinfi, 
but  of  Rhona  Boswell.  Sinfi  is  the  character  alluded  to 
in  the  now  famous  sonnet  describing  *  the  walking  lord 
of  gypsy  lore,'  Borrow,  by  his  most  intimate  friend,  Dr. 
Gordon  Hake. 

Now  that  so  many  of  the  gryengroes  (horse-dealers), 
who  form  the  aristocracy  of  the  Romany  race,  have  left 
England  for  America,  it  is  natural  enough  that  to  some 
readers  of  '  Aylwin  '  and  *  The  Coming  of  Love,'  my 

w.-D.  24 


370  A  Story  with  Two  Heroines 

pictures  of  Romany  life  seem  a  little  idealized.  The 
'  Times,'  in  a  kindly  notice  of  '  The  Coming  of  Love/ 
said  that  the  kind  of  gypsies  there  depicted  are  a  very 
interesting  people,  '  unless  the  author  has  flattered  them 
unduly.'  Those  who  best  knew  the  gypsy  women  of  that 
period  will  be  the  first  to  aver  that  I  have  not  flattered 
them  unduly." 

It  is  Winifred  who  shares,  not  only  with  Henry  Aylwin, 
but  also  with  the  author  himself,  that  love  of  the  wind 
which  he  revealed  in  the  *  Athenaeum '  many  years 
before  '  Aylwin '  was  published.  I  may  quote  this 
passage  in  praise  of  the  wind  as  an  example  of  the  way  in 
which  his  imaginative  work  and  his  critical  work  are 
often  interwoven  : — 

"  There  is  no  surer  test  of  genuine  nature  instinct 
than  this.  Anybody  can  love  sunshine.  No  people 
had  less  of  the  nature  instinct  than  the  Romans,  but  they 
could  enjoy  the  sun  ;  they  even  took  their  solaria  or  sun- 
baths,  and  gave  them  to  their  children.  And,  if  it  may 
be  said  that  no  Roman  loved  the  wind,  how  much  more 
may  this  be  said  of  the  French  !  None  but  a  born  child 
of  the  tent  could  ever  have  written  about  the  winds  of 
heaven  as  Victor  Hugo  has  written  in  '  Les  Travailleurs 
de  la  Mer,'  as  though  they  were  the  ministers  of  Ahriman. 
*  From  Ormuzd,  not  from  Ahriman,  ye  come.'  And 
here,  indeed,  is  the  difference  between  the  two  national- 
ities. Love  of  the  wind  has  made  England  what  she  is ; 
dread  of  the  wind  has  greatly  contributed  to  make  France 
what  she  is.  The  winds  are  the  breathings  of  the  Great 
Mother.  Under  the  '  olden  spell '  of  dumbness,  nature 
can  yet  speak  to  us  by  her  winds.  It  is  they  that  express 
her  every  mood,  and,  if  her  mood  is  rough  at  times,  her 


Love   of  the  Wind  371 

heart  is  kind.  .  This  is  why  the  true  child  of  the  open- 
air — never  mind  how  much  he  may  suffer  from  the  wind 
— loves  it,  loves  it  as  much  when  it  comes  and  '  takes  the 
ruffian  billows  by  the  top  '  to  the  peril  of  his  life,  as  when 
it  comes  from  the  sweet  South.  In  the  wind's  most 
boisterous  moods,  such  as  those  so  splendidly  depicted 
by  Dana  in  the  doubling  of  Cape  Horn,  there  is  an  ex- 
hilaration, a  fierce  delight,  in  struggling  with  it.  It  is 
delightful  to  read  Thoreau  when  he  writes  about  the 
wind,  and  that  which  the  wind  so  loves — the  snow." 


Chapter    XXIII 

THE  RENASCENCE  OF  WONDER  IN 
RELIGION 

AND  now  as  to  the  real  inner  meaning  of '  Alwyin,' 
about  which  so  much  has  been  written.  "  '  Ayl- 
win,'  "  says  Groome,  "  is  a  passionate  love-story,  with 
a  mystical  idee  mere.  For  the  entire  dramatic  action 
revolves  around  a  thought  that  is  coming  more  and  more 
to  the  front — the  difference,  namely,  between  a  material- 
istic and  a  spiritualistic  cosmogony."  And  Dr.  Nicoll, 
in  his  essay  on  "  The  Significance  of  '  Aylwin,'  "  in 
the  '  Contemporary  Review,'  says  : — 

"  Every  serious  student  will  see  at  a  glance  that  'Aylwin ' 
is  a  concrete  expression  of  the  author's  criticism  of 
life  and  literature,  and  even — though  this  must  be 
said  with  more  reserve — a  concrete  expression  of  his 
theory  of  the  universe.  This  theory  I  will  venture  to 
define  as  an  optimistic  confronting  of  the  new  cosmo- 
gony of  growth  on  which  the  author  has  for  long 
descanted.  Throughout  all  his  writings  there  is  evidence 
of  a  mental  struggle  as  severe  as  George  Eliot's  with  that 
materialistic  reading  of  the  universe  which  seemed 
forced  upon  thinkers  when  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
passed  from  hypothesis  to  an  accepted  theory.  Those 
who  have  followed  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  writings  in 
the  '  Examiner  '  and  in  the  '  Athenaeum  '  must  have 
observed    with    what    passionate    eagerness    he    insisted 


The   Cosmogony  of  the  Twentieth  Century  373 

that  Darwinism,  if  properly  understood,  would  carry 
us  no  nearer  to  materialism  than  did  the  spiritualistic 
cosmogonies  of  old,  unless  it  could  establish  abiogenesis 
against  biogenesis.  As  every  experiment  of  every  bio- 
logist has  failed  to  do  so,  a  new  spiritualist  cosmogony 
must  be  taught." 

And  yet  the  student  of  '  Aylwin '  must  bear  in  mind 
that  some  critics,  taking  the  very  opposite  view,  have 
said  that  its  final  teaching  is  not  meant  to  be  mystical 
at  all,  but  anti-mystical — that  what  to  Philip  Aylwin 
and  his  disciples  seems  so  mystical  is  all  explained  by  the 
operation  of  natural  laws.  This  theory  reminds  me  of  a 
saying  of  Goethe's  about  the  enigmatic  nature  of  all 
true  and  great  works  of  art.  I  forget  the  exact  words, 
but  they  set  me  thinking  about  the  chameleon-like  iri- 
descence of  great  poems  and  dramas. 

With  regard  to  the  fountain-head  of  all  the  mysticism 
of  the  story,  Philip  Aylwin,  much  has  been  said.  Philip 
is  the  real  protagonist  of  the  story — he  governs,  as  I 
have  said,  the  entire  dramatic  action  from  his  grave,  and 
illustrates  at  every  point  Sinfi  Lovell's  saying,  '  You 
must  dig  deep  to  bury  your  daddy.'  Everything  that 
occurs  seems  to  be  the  result  of  the  father's  speculations, 
and  the  effect  of  them  upon  other  minds  like  that  of  his 
son  and  that  of  Wilderspin. 

The  appearance  of  this  new  epic  of  spiritual  love 
came  at  exactly  the  right  moment — came  when  a  new 
century  was  about  to  dawn  which  will  throw  off  the 
trammels  of  old  modes  of  thought.  While  I  am  writing 
these  lines  Mr.  Balfour  at  the  British  Association  has 
been  expounding  what  must  be  called  '  Aylwinism,' 
and  (as   I  shall  show  in   the  last  chapter  of  this  book 


374  '^^^  Renascence  of  Wonder  in  Religion 

saying  in  other  words  what  Henry  Ayl win's  father  said 
in  *  The  Veiled  Queen.'  In  the  preface  to  the  edition  of 
*  Aylwin  '  in  the  *  World's  Classics '  the  author  says  : — 

"  The  heart-thought  of  this  book  being  the  peculiar 
doctrine  in  Philip  Aylwin's '  Veiled  Queen,'  and  the  effect 
of  it  upon  the  fortunes  of  the  hero  and  the  other  charac- 
ters, the  name  '  The  Renascence  of  Wonder  '  was  the 
first  that  came  to  my  mind  when  confronting  the  difficult 
question  of  finding  a  name  for  a  book  that  is  at  once  a 
love-story  and  an  expression  of  a  creed.  But  eventually 
I  decided,  and  I  think  from  the  worldly  point  of  view 
wisely,  to  give  it  simply  the  name  of  the  hero. 

The  important  place  in  the  story,  however,  taken 
by  this  creed,  did  not  escape  the  most  acute  and  pains- 
taking of  the  critics.  Madame  Galimberti,  for  instance, 
in  the  elaborate  study  of  the  book  which  she  made  in 
the  '  Rivista  d'ltalia,'  gave  great  attention  to  its  central 
idea  ;  so  did  M.  Maurice  Muret,  in  the  '  Journal  des 
Debats '  ;  so  did  M.  Henri  Jacottet  in  '  La  Semaine 
Litteraire.'  Mr.  Baker,  again,  in  his  recently  published 
'Guide  to  Fiction,'  described  'Aylwin'  as  "  an  imaginative 
romance  of  modern  days,  the  moral  idea  of  which  is 
man's  attitude  in  face  of  the  unknown,  or,  as  the  writer 
puts  it, '  the  renascence  of  wonder.'  "  With  regard'to  the 
phrase  itself,  in  the  introduction  to  the  latest  edition 
of  '  Aylwin  ' — the  twenty-second  edition — I  made  the 
following  brief  reply  to  certain  questions  that  [have 
been  raised  by  critics  both  in  England  and  on  the 
Continent  concerning  it.  The  phrase,  I  said,  '  The  Re- 
nascence of  Wonder,'  '  is  used  to  express  that  great 
revived  movement  of  the  soul  of  man  which  is  generally 
said  to  have  begun  with  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth, 
Scott,  Coleridge,  and  others,  and  after  many  varieties  of 


'  The  Veiled  Queen  '  375 

expression    reached  its    culmination   in  the  poems  and 
pictures  of  Rossetti.' 

The  painter  Wilderspin  says  to  Henry  Aylwin,  *  The 
one  great  event  of  my  life  has  been  the  reading  of  "  The 
Veiled  Queen,"  your  father's  book  of  inspired  wisdom 
upon  the  modern  Renascence  of  Wonder  in  the  mind 
of  man.'  And  further  on  he  says  that  his  own  great 
picture  symbolical  of  this  renascence  was  suggested  by 
Philip  Aylwin's  vignette.  Since  the  original  writing  of 
'  Aylwin,'  many  years  ago,  I  have  enlarged  upon  its 
central  idea  in  the  '  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,'  in 
the  introductory  essay  to  the  third  volume  of  '  Cham- 
bers's Cyclopaedia  of  English  Literature,'  and  in  other 
places.  Naturally,  therefore,  the  phrase  has  been  a  good 
deal  discussed.  Quite  lately  Dr.  Robertson  NicoU  has 
directed  attention  to  the  phrase,  and  he  has  taken  it  as  a 
text  of  a  remarkable  discourse  upon  the  '  Renascence  of 
Wonder  in  Religion.' 

Mr.  Watts-Dunton  then  quotes  Dr.  Nicoll's  remarks 
upon  the  Logia  recently  discovered  by  the  explorers  of 
the  Egypt  Fund.  He  shows  how  men  came  to  see 
'  once  more  the  marvel  of  the  universe  and  the  romance 
of  man's  destiny.  They  became  aware  of  the  spiritual 
world,  of  the  supernatural,  of  the  lifelong  struggle  of 
soul,  of  the  power  of  the  unseen.' 

"  The  words  quoted  by  Dr.  Nicoll  might  very  appro- 
priately be  used  as  a  motto  for  '  Aylwin  '  and  also  for  its 
sequel  *  The  Coming  of  Love  :   RhonaBoswell's  Story.'  " 

When  '  Aylwin  '  first  appeared,  the  editor  of  a  well- 
known  journal  sent  it  to  me  for  review.  I  read  it  :  never 
shall  I  forget  that  reading.  I  was  in  Ireland  at  the  time 
— an  Irish  Wedding  Guest  at  an  Irish  Wedding.     Now 


37^  The  Renascence  of  Wonder  in  Religion 

an  Irish  Wedding  is  more  joyous  than  any  novel,  and 
Irish  girls  are  lovelier  than  any  romance.  A  duel  between 
Life  and  Literature !  Picture  it !  Behold  the  Irish 
Wedding  Guest  spell-bound  by  a  story-teller  as  cunning 
as  '  The  Ancient  Mariner  '  himself  !  He  heareth  the 
bridal  music,  but  Aylwin  continueth  his  tale  :  he  can- 
not choose  but  hear,  until  *  The  Curse  '  of  the  '  The 
Moonlight  Cross '  of  the  Gnostics  is  finally  expiated,  and 
Aylwin  and  Winnie  see  in  the  soul  of  the  sunset  '  The 
Dukkeripen  of  the  Trushul,"  the  blessed  Cross  of  Rose 
and  Gold.  Amid  the  *  merry  din  '  of  the  Irish  Wedding 
Feast  the  Irish  Wedding  Guest  read  and  wrote.  And 
among  other  lyrical  things,  he  said  that  '  since  Shake- 
speare created  Ophelia  there  has  been  nothing  in  litera- 
ture so  moving,  so  pathetic,  so  unimaginably  sorrowful 
as  the  madness  of  Winnie  Wynne.'  And  he  also  said 
that  "  the  majority  of  readers  will  delight  in  '  Aylwin ' 
as  the  most  wonderful  of  love  stories,  but  as  the  years  go 
by  an  ever  increasing  number  will  find  in  it  the  germ 
of  a  new  religion,  a  clarified  spiritualism,  free  from  char- 
latanry, a  solace  and  a  consolation  for  the  soul  amid  the 
bludgeonings  of  circumstance  and  the  cruelties  of  fate." 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  when  I  told  him  that  I  was  going 
to  write  this  book,  urged  me  to  moderate  my  praise  and 
to  call  into  action  the  critical  power  that  he  was  good 
enough  to  say  that  I  possessed.  He  especially  asked  me 
not  to  repeat  the  above  words,  the  warmth  of  which,  he 
said,  might  be  misconstrued ;  but  the  courage  of  my 
opinions  I  will  exercise  so  long  as  I  write  at  all.  The 
'  newspaper  cynics '  that  once  were  and  perhaps  still  are 
strong,  I  have  always  defied  and  always  will  defy.  I  am 
glad  to  see  that  there  is  one  point  of  likeness  between  us 
of  the  younger  generation  and  the  great  one  to  which 
Mr.   Watts-Dunton  and  his  illustrious   friends   belong. 


'  Aylwin '   as   a   Message  to   the   Soul      377 

We  are  not  afraid  and  we  are  not  ashamed  of  being  en- 
thusiastic. This,  also,  I  hope,  will  be  a  note  of  the  twen- 
tieth century. 

No  doubt  mine  was  a  bold  prophecy  to  utter  in  a 
rapid  review  of  a  romance,  but  time  has  shown  that 
it  was  not  a  rash  one.  The  truth  is  that  the  real 
vogue  of  '  Aylwin  '  as  a  message  to  the  soul  is  only  be- 
ginning. Five  years  have  elapsed  since  the  publication 
of  '  Aylwin,'  and  during  that  time  it  has,  I  think,  passed 
into  twenty-four  editions  in  England  alone,  the  latest  of 
all  these  editions  being  the  beautiful  '  Arvon  Edition,' 
not  to  speak  of  the  vast  issue  in  sixpenny  form. 

I  will  now  quote  the  words  of  a  very  accomplished 
scholar  and  critic  upon  the  inner  meaning  of  '  Aylwin ' 
generally.  They  appeared  in  the  '  Saturday  Review  ' 
of  October  1904,  and  they  show  that  the  interest  in  the 
book,  so  far  from  waning,  is  increasing  : — 

"  Public  taste  has  for  once  made  a  lucky  shot,  and  we 
are  only  too  pleased  to  be  able  to  put  an  item  to  the 
credit  of  an  account  in  taste,  where  the  balance  is  so 
heavily  on  the  wrong  side.  How  '  Aylwin  '  ever  came 
to  be  a  popular  success  is  hard  indeed  to  understand. 
We  cannot  wonder  at  the  doubts  of  a  popular  reception 
confessed  to  by  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  in  his  dedication  of 
the  latest  edition  to  Mr.  Ernest  Rhys.  How  did  a  book, 
notable  for  its  poetry  and  subtlety  of  thought,  come  to 
appeal  to  an  English  public  ?  That  it  should  have  a 
vogue  in  Wales  was  natural ;  Welsh  patriotism  would 
assure  a  certain  success,  though  by  itself  it  could  not  in- 
deed have  made  the  book  the  household  word  it  has  now 
become  throughout  all  Wales.  And  undoubtedly  its 
Welsh  reception  has  been  the  more  intelligent ;  it  has 
been  welcomed  there  for  the  qualities  that  most  deserved 


37^  The  Renascence  of  Wonder  in  Religion 

a  welcome  ;  while  in  England  we  fear  that  in  many 
quarters  it  has  rather  been  welcomed  in  spite  of  them. 
The  average  English  man  and  woman  do  not  like 
mystery  and  distrust  poetry.  They  have  little  sym- 
pathy with  the  '  renascence  of  wonder,'  which  some  new 
passages  unfold  to  us  in  the  Arvon  edition,  passages 
originally  omitted  for  fear  of  excessive  length  and  now 
restored  from  the  MS.  We  are  glad  to  have  them,  for 
they  illustrate  further  the  intellectual  motive  of  the 
book.  We  are  of  those  who  do  not  care  to  take  '  Aylwin  ' 
merely  as  a  novel." 

These  words  remind  me  of  two  reviews  of  '  Aylwin,' 
one  by  Mr.  W.  P.  Ryan,  a  fellow-countryman  of  mine, 
which  was  published  when  '  Aylwin '  first  appeared,  the 
other  by  an   eminent   French  writer. 

"  The  salient  impression  on  the  reader  is  that  he  is 
looking  full  into  deep  reaches  of  life  and  spirituality  rather 
than  temporary  pursuits  and  mundane  ambitions.  In 
this  regard,  in  its  freedom  from  littleness,  its  breadth  of 
life,  its  exaltation  of  mood,  its  sense  of  serene  issues  that 
do  not  pass  with  the  changing  fashions  of  a  generation, 
the  book  is  almost  epic. 

But  '  Aylwin  '  has  yet  other  sides.  It  is  a  vital  and 
seizing  story.  The  girl-heroine  is  a  beautiful  present- 
ment, and  the  struggle  with  destiny,  when,  believing  in 
the  efficacy  of  a  mystic's  curse  she  loses  her  reason,  and 
flies  from  poignantly  idyllic  life  to  harrowing  life,  her 
stricken  lover  in  her  wake,  is  nearly  Greek  in  its  intensity 
and  pathos.  The  long,  long  quest  through  the  mountain 
magic  of  Wales,  the  wandering  spheres  of  Romany-land, 
and  the  art-reaches  of  London,  could  only  be  made  real 
and  convincing  by  triumphant  art.     A  less  expert  pioneer 


'  Serene   issues  that   do   not  pass  *         379 

would  enlarge  his  effects  in  details  that  would  dissipate 
their  magic  ;  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  knows  that  one  inspired 
touch  is  worth  many  uninspired  chapters,  as  Shakespeare 
knew  that  '  she  should  have  died  hereafter.' 


Death  came  on  her  like  an  untimely  frost, 
Upon  the  fairest  flower  of  all  the  field. 


or 


Childe  Rowland  to  the  dark  tower  came, 


is  worth  an  afternoon  of  emphasis,  a  night  of  mystical 
elaboration. 

Incidentally,  the  Celtic  and  Romany  types  of  char- 
acter reveal  their  essence.  Here,  too,  the  author  pre- 
serves the  artistic  unities.  Delightful  as  one  realizes 
these  characters  to  be,  full-blooded  personalities  though 
they  are,  it  is  still  their  spirit,  and  through  it  the  larger 
spirit  of  their  race,  that  shines  clearest.  Their  story  is  all 
realistic,  and  yet  it  leaves  the  flavour  of  a  fairy  tale  of 
Regeneration.  At  first  sight  one  is  inclined  to  speak  of 
their  beautiful  kinship  with  Nature  ;  but  the  truth  is 
that  Nature  and  they  together  are  seen  with  spiritual 
eyes ;  that  they  and  Nature  are  different  but  kindred 
embodiments  of  the  underlying,  all-extending,  universal 
soul ;  that  Henry's  love,  and  Winnie's  rapture,  and 
Snowdon's  magic,  and  Sinfi's  crwth,  and  the  little  song  of 
y  Wydffa,  and  the  glorious  mountain  dawn  are  but  drops 
and  notes  in  a  melodic  mystic  ocean,  of  which  the  farthest 
stars  and  the  deepest  loves  are  kindred  and  inevitable 
parts — parts  of  a  whole,  of  whose  ministry  we  hardly 
know  the  elements,  yet  are  cognisant  that  our  highest 
joy  is  to  feel  in  radiant  moments  that  we,  too,  are  part 
of  the  harmony.  In  idyll,  despair  or  tragedy,  the  beauty 
of  '  Aylwin  '  is  that  always  the  song   of  the   divine  in 


380  The  Renascence  of  Wonder  in  Religion 

humanity  is  beneath  it.  Everything  merges  into  one 
consistent,  artistically  suggested,  spiritual  conception 
of  life  ;  love  tried,  tortured,  finally  rewarded  as  the 
supreme  force  utilized  to  drive  home  the  intolerable 
negation  and  atrophy  of  materialism ;  in  Henry's  gnostic 
father,  in  the  scientific  Henry  himself,  the  Romany  Sinfi, 
Winnie  whose  nature  is  a  song,  Wilderspin  who  believes 
that  his  model  is  a  heavenly  visitant  with  an  immaterial 
body,  D'Arcy  who  stands  for  Rossetti,  the  end  is  the 
same  ;  and  the  striking  trait  is  the  felicity  with  which  so 
many  dissimilar  personalities,  while  playing  the  drama  of 
divergent  actuality  to  the  full,  yet  realize  and  illustrate, 
without  apparent  manipulation  by  the  author,  the  one 
abiding  spiritual  unity. 

In  execution,  '  Aylwin '  is  far  above  the  accomplished 
English  novel-work  of  latter  years ;  as  a  conception  of 
life  it  surely  transcends  all.  The  *  schools '  we  have 
known  :  the  realistic,  the  romantic,  the  quasi-historical, 
the  local,  seem  but  parts  of  the  whole  when  their  motives 
are  measured  with  the  idea  that  permeates  this  novel. 
They  take  drear  or  gallant  roads  through  limited  lands ; 
it  rises  like  a  stately  hill  from  which  a  world  is  clearer, 
above  and  beyond  whose  limits  there  are  visions.  Voices, 
and  the  verities." 

With  equal  eloquence  M.  Jacottet  on  the  same  day 
wrote  about  "  Aylwin  "  in  '  La  Semaine  Litteraire  '  : — 

"  The  central  idea  of  this  poetic  book  is  that  of  love 
stronger  than  death,  love  elevating  the  soul  to  a  mys- 
tical conception  of  the  universe.  It  is  a  singular  fact 
that  at  the  moment  when  England,  intoxicated  with  her 
successes,  seems  to  have  no  room  for  thought  except 
with  regard  to  her  fleet  and  her  commerce,  and  allows 
herself  to  be  dazzled  by  dreams  of  universal  empire,  the 


The   Divine   in   Humanity  381 

book  in  vogue  should  be  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  romance — 
the  most  idealistic,  the  farthest  removed  from  the  modern 
Anglo-Saxon  conception  of  life  that  ne  could  possibly 
conceive.  But  this  fact  has  often  been  observable  in 
literary  history.  Is  not  the  true  charm  of  letters  that 
of  giving  to  the  soul  respite  from  the  brutalities  of  con- 
temporary events  ?  " 


Chapter  XXIV 
THE  RENASCENCE  OF  WONDER  IN  HUMOUR 

THE  character  of  Mrs.  Gudgeon  in  '  Aylwin  '  stands 
as  entirely  alone  among  homourous  characters 
as  does  Sancho  Panza,  Falstaff,  Mrs.  Quickly  or  Mrs. 
Partridge.  In  my  own  review  of  '  Aylwin '  I  thus 
noted  the  entirely  new  kind  of  humour  which  charac- 
terizes it  : — "  To  one  aspect  of  this  book  we  have  not 
yet  alluded,  namely,  its  humour.  Whimsical  Mrs. 
Gudgeon,  the  drunken  virago  who  pretends  that  Winnie 
is  her  daughter,  is  inimitable,  with  her  quaint  saying  : 
'  I  shall  die  a-larfin',  they  say  in  Primrose  Court,  and 
so  I  shall — unless  I  die  a-crying.'  "  Few  critics  have 
done  justice  to  Mrs.  Gudgeon,  although  the  '  Times ' 
said  :  '  In  Mrs.  Gudgeon,  one  of  his  characters,  the  author 
has  accomplished  the  feat  of  creating  what  seems  to  be  a 
new  comic  figure,'  and  the  '  Saturday  Review  '  singled 
her  out  as  being  the  triumph  of  the  book.  Could  she 
really  have  been  a  real  character  ?  Could  there  ever 
have  existed  in  the  London  of  the  mid-Victorian  period 
a  real  flesh  and  blood  costermonger  so  rich  in  humour 
that  her  very  name  sheds  a  glow  of  laughter  over  every 
page  in  which  it  appears  ?  According  to  Mr.  Hake,  she 
was  suggested  by  a  real  woman,  and  this  makes  me  almost 
lament  my  arrival  in  London  too  late  to  make  her  ac- 
quaintance. "  With  regard  to  the  most  original  char- 
acter of  the  story,"  says  Mr.  Hake,  "  those  who  knew 
Clement's  Inn,  where  I  myself  once  resided,  and  Lin- 
coln's Inn  Fields,  will  be  able  at  once  to  identify  Mrs. 


The  Absolute  Humourist,  Mrs.  Gudgeon.  383 

Gudgeon,  who  lived  in  one  of  the  streets  running  into 
Clare  Market.  Her  business  was  that  of  night  coffee- 
stall  keeper.  At  one  time,  I  believe — but  I  am  not  cer- 
tain about  this — she  kept  a  stall  on  the  Surrey  side  of 
Waterloo  Bridge,  and  it  might  have  been  there  that,  as  I 
have  been  told,  her  portrait  was  drawn  for  a  specified 
number  of  early  breakfasts  by  an  unfortunate  artist  who 
sank  very  low,  but  had  real  ability.  Her  constant  phrase 
was  '  I  shall  die  o'-laughin' — I  know  I  shall ! '  On 
account  of  her  extraordinary  gift  of  repartee,  and  her 
inexhaustible  fund  of  wit  and  humour,  she  was  generally 
supposed  to  be  an  Irishwoman.  But  she  was  not ;  she 
was  cockney  to  the  marrow.  Recluse  as  Rossetti  was  in 
his  later  years,  he  had  at  one  time  been  very  different, 
and  could  bring  himself  in  touch  with  the  lower  orders 
of  London  in  a  way  such  as  was  only  known  to  his  most 
intimate  friends.  With  all  her  impudence,  and  I  may 
say  insolence,  Mrs.  Gudgeon  was  a  great  favourite  with 
the  police,  who  were  the  constant  butts  of  her  chaff."  ^ 
But,  of  course,  this  interesting  costermonger  could  have 
only  suggested  our  unique  Mrs.  Gudgeon. 

She  shows  that  it  is  possible  to  paint  a  low-class  humour- 
ist as  rich  in  the  new  cosmic  humour  as  any  one  of 
Dickens's  is  rich  in  the  old]terrene  humour,  and  yet  with- 
out one  Dickensian  touch.  The  difficulty  of  achiev- 
ing this  feat  is  manifested  every  day,  both  in  novels  and 
on  the  stage.  Until  Mrs.  Gudgeon  appeared  I  thought 
that  Dickens  had  made  it  as  impossible  for  another  writer 
to  paint  humourous  pictures  of  low-class  London  women 
as  Swinburne  has  made  it  impossible  for  another  poet  to 
write  in  anapaests.  But  there  is  in  all  that  Mrs.  Gudgeon 
says  or  does  a  profundity  of  humour  so  much  deeper  than 

^  '  Notes  and  Queries,'  June  7,  1902. 


384  The    Renascence   of  Wonder  in   Humour 

the  humour  of  Mrs.  Gamp,  that  it  wins  her  a  separate 
niche  in  our  gallery  of  humourous  women.  The  chief 
cause  of  the  delight  which  Mrs.  Gudgeon  gives  me  is 
that  she  illustrates  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  theory  of  abso- 
lute humour  as  distinguished  from  relative  humour — a 
theory  which  delighted  me  in  those  boyish  days  in  Ire- 
land, to  which  I  have  already  alluded  .  I  have  read  his 
words  on  this  theme  so  often  that  I  think  I  could  repeat 
them  as  fluently  as  a  nursery  rhyme.  In  their  original 
form  I  remember  that  the  word  '  caricature  '  took  the 
place  of  the  phrase  '  relative  humour.'  I  do  not  think 
there  is  anything  in  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  writings  so 
suggestive  and  so  profound,  and  to  find  in  reading  '  Ayl- 
win  '  that  they  were  suggested  to  him  by  a  real  living 
character  was  exhilarating  indeed. 

Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  theory  of  humour  is  one  of  his 
most  original  generalizations,  and  it  is  vitally  related 
both  to  his  theory  of  poetry  and  to  his  generalization  of 
generalizations,  '  The  Renascence  of  V/onder.'  I  think 
Mrs.  Gudgeon  is  a  cockney  Anacharsis  in  petticoats. 
The  Scythian  philosopher,  it  will  be  remembered,  when 
jesters  were  taken  to  him,  could  not  be  made  to  smile, 
but  afterwards,  when  a  monkey  was  brought  to  him, 
broke  out  into  a  fit  of  laughter  and  said,  '  Now  this  is 
laughable  by  nature,  the  other  by  art.'  I  will  now  quote 
the  essay  on  absolute  and  relative  humour  : — 

"  Anarcharsis,  who  found  the  humour  of  Nature  alone 
laughable,  was  the  absolute  humourist  as  distinguished 
from  the  relative  humourist,  who  only  finds  food  for 
laughter  in  the  distortions  of  so-called  humourous  art. 
The  quality  which  I  have  called  absolute  humour 
is  popularly  supposed  to  be  the  characteristic  and 
special    temper  of    the   English.  The   bustling,   money- 


The  Absolute  Humourist,  Mrs.  Gudgeon     385 

grubbing,  rank-worshipping  British,  slave  of  conven- 
tion claims  to  be  the  absolute  humourist  !  It  is  very 
amusing.  The  temper  of  absolute  humour,  on  the  con- 
trary, is  the  temper  of  Hotei,  the  fat  Japanese  god  of 
'  contentment  with  things  as  they  be,'  who,  when  the 
children  wake  him  up  from  his  sleep  in  the  sunshine,  and 
tickle  and  tease  him,  and  climb  over  his  '  thick  rotundity 
of  belly,'  good-naturedly  bribes  them  to  leave  him  in 
peace  by  telling  them  fairy  stories  and  preaching  hum- 
ourous homilies  upon  the  blessings  of  contentment,  the 
richness  of  Nature's  largess,  the  exceeding  cheapness  of 
good  things,  such  as  sunshine  and  sweet  rains  and  the 
beautiful  white  cherrv  blossoms  on  the  mountain  side. 
Between  this  and  relative  humour  how  wide  is  the  gulf  ! 

That  an  apprehension  of  incongruity  is  the  basis  of 
both  relative  and  absolute  humour  is  no  doubt  true 
enough  ;  but  while  in  the  case  of  relative  humour  it  is 
the  incongruity  of  some  departure  from  the  normal,  in 
the  case  of  absolute  humour  it  is  the  sweet  incongruity 
of  the  normal  itself.  Relative  humour  laughs  at  the 
breach  of  the  accustomed  laws  of  nature  and  the  con- 
ventional laws  of  man,  which  laws  it  accepts  as  final. 
Absolute  humour  (comparing  them  unconsciously  with 
some  ideal  standard  of  its  own,  or  with  that  ideal  or 
noumenal  or  spiritual  world  behind  the  cosmic  show) 
sees  the  incongruity  of  those  very  laws  themselves — laws 
which  arc  the  relative  humourist's  standard.  Absolute 
humour,  in  a  word,  is  based  on  metaphysics — relative 
humour  on  experience.  A  child  can  become  a  relative 
humourist  by  adding  a  line  or  two  to  the  nose  of  Welling- 
ton, or  by  reversing  the  nose  of  the  Venus  de  Medici. 
The  absolute  humourist  has  so  long  been  saying  to  him- 
self, *  What  a  whimsical  idea  is  the  human  nose  !  '  that 
he  smiles  the  smile  of  Anarcharsis  at  the  child's  laughter 

w.-D.  25 


386     The  Renascence  of  Wonder  in  Humour 

on  seeing  it  turned  upside  down.  So  with  convention 
and  its  codes  of  etiquette — from  the  pompous  har- 
lequinade of  royalty — the  ineffable  gingerbread  of  an 
aristocracy  of  names  without  office  or  culture,  down  to 
the  Draconian  laws  of  Philistia  and  bourgeois  respect- 
ability ;  whatever  is  a  breach  of  the  local  laws  of  the  game 
of  social  life,  whether  the  laws  be  those  of  a  village 
pothouse  or  of  Mayfair ;  whether  it  displays  an  ignorance 
of  matters  of  familiar  knowledge,  these  are  the  quarry  of 
the  relative  humourist.  The  absolute  humourist,  on 
the  other  hand,  as  we  see  in  the  greatest  masters  of  ab- 
solute humour,  is  so  perpetually  overwhelmed  with  the 
irony  of  the  entire  game,  cosmic  and  human,  from  the 
droll  little  conventions  of  the  village  pothouse  to  those 
of  London,  of  Paris,  of  New  York,  of  Pekin — up  to  the 
apparently  meaningless  dance  of  the  planets  round  the 
sun — up  again  to  that  greater  and  more  meaningless 
waltz  of  suns  round  the  centre — he  is  so  delighted  with 
the  delicious  foolishness  of  wisdom,  the  conceited  ignor- 
ance of  knowledge,  the  grotesqueness  even  of  the  standard 
of  beauty  itself  ;  above  all,  with  the  whim  of  the  absolute 
humourist  Nature,  amusing  herself,  not  merely  with  her 
monkeys,  her  flamingoes,  her  penguins,  her  dromedaries, 
but  with  these  more  whimsical  creatures  still — these 
'  bipeds  '  which,  though  '  featherless  '  are  proved  to  be 
not  '  plucked  fowls '  ;  these  proud,  high-thinking  organ- 
isms— stomachs  with  heads,  arms,  and  legs  as  useful 
appendages — these  countless  little  '  me's,'  so  all  alike  and 
yet  so  unlike,  each  one  feeling,  knowing  itself  to  be  the 
me,  the  only  true  original  me,  round  whom  all  other  me's 
revolve — so  overwhelmed  is  the  absolute  humourist  with 
the  whim  of  all  this — with  the  incongruity,  that  is,  of 
the  normal  itself — with  the  '  almighty  joke  '  of  the  Cos- 
mos as  it  is — that  he  sees  nothing  '  funny  '  in  departures 


The  Absolute  Humourist,  Mrs.  Gudgeon     387 

from  laws  which  to  him  are  in  themselves  the  very  quint- 
essence of  fun.  And  he  laughs  the  laugh  of  Rabelais  and 
of  Sterne  ;  for  he  feels  that  behind  this  rich  incongruous 
show  there  must  be  a  beneficent  Showman.  He  knows 
that  although  at  the  top  of  the  constellation  sits  Cir- 
cumstance, Harlequin  and  King,  bowelless  and  blind, 
shaking  his  starry  cap  and  bells,  there  sits  far  above  even 
Harlequin  himself  another  Being  greater  than  he — a 
Being  who  because  he  has  given  us  the  delight  of  laughter 
must  be  good,  and  who  in  the  end  will  somewhere  set  all 
these  incongruities  right — who  will,  some  day,  show  us 
the  meaning  of  that  which  now  seems  so  meaningless. 
With  Charles  Lamb  he  feels,  in  short,  that  humour  '  does 
not  go  out  with  life  '  ;  and  in  answer  to  Elia's  question, 
'  Can  a  ghost  laugh  ?  '  he  says,  '  Assuredly,  if  there  be 
ghosts  at  all,'  for  he  is  as  unable  as  Soame  Jenyns  himself 
to  imagine  that  even  the  seraphim  can  be  perfectly  happy 
without  a  perception  of  the  ludicrous. 

If  this,  then,  is  the  absolute  humourist  as  distin- 
guished from  the  relative  humourist,  his  type  is  not 
Dickens  or  Cruikshank,  but  Anacharsis,  or,  better  still, 
that  old  Greek  who  died  of  laughter  from  seeing  a  don- 
key eat,  and  who,  perhaps,  is  the  only  man  who  could  have 
told  us  what  the  superlative  feeling  of  absolute  humour 
really  is,  though  he  died  of  a  sharp  and  sudden  recognition 
of  the  humour  of  the  bodily  functions  merely.  And 
naturally^  what  is  such  a  perennial  source  of  amusement 
to  the  absolute  humourist  he  gets  to  love.  Mere  re- 
presentation, therefore,  is  with  him  the  be-all  and  the 
end-all  of  art.  Exaggeration  offends  him.  Nothing  to 
him  is   so  rich  as  the  real.     He  pronounces  Tennyson's 

*  Northern  Farmer '  or  the  public-house  scene  in  '  Silas 
Marner  '  to  be  more  humourous  than  the  trial  scene  in 

*  Pickwick.'     Wilkie's  realism  he  finds  more  humourous 


388      The  Renascence  of  Wonder  in  Humour 

than  the  funniest  cartoon  in  the  funniest  comic  journal. 
And  this  mood  is  as  much  opposed  to  satire  as  to  relative 
humour.  Of  all  moods  the  rarest  and  the  finest — re- 
quiring, indeed,  such  a  '  blessed  mixing  of  the  juices  '  as 
nature  cannot  every  day  achieve — it  is  the  mood  of  each 
one  of  those  fatal  '  Paradis  Artificiels,'  the  seeking  of 
which  has  devastated  the  human  race  :  the  mood  of 
Christopher  Sly,  of  Villon  ;  of  Walter  Mapes  in  the  fol- 
lowing verse  : — 

Meum  est  propositum  in  taberna  mori, 
Vinum  sit  appositum  morientis  ori, 
Ut  dicant  cum  venerint  angelorum  chori, 
Deus  sit  propitius  huic  potatori." 

Now  it  is  because  Mrs.  Gudgeon  is  the  very  type  of 
the  absolute  humourist  as  defined  in  this  magnificent 
fugue  of  prose,  and  the  only  example  of  absolute  humour 
which  has  appeared  in  prose  fiction,  that  she  is  to  me  a 
fount  of  esoteric  and  fastidious  joy.  If  I  were  asked 
what  character  in  '  Aylwin '  shows  the  most  unmistakable 
genius,  I  should  reply,  '  Mrs.  Gudgeon  !  and  again,  Mrs. 
Gudgeon ! ' 


Chapter  XXV 

GORGIOS    AND    ROMANIES 

THE  publication  of  '  The  Coming  of  Love  '  in  book 
form  preceded  that  of  '  Aylwin  '  by  about  a  year, 
but  it  had  been  appearing  piecemeal  in  the  '  Athenasum  ' 
since  1882. 

"  So  far  as  regards  Rhona  Boswell's  story,"  says 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  " '  The  Coming  of  Love '  is  a 
sequel  to  '  Aylwin.'  If  the  allusions  to  Rhona's  lover, 
Percy  Aylwin,  in  the  prose  story  have  been,  in  some 
degree,  misunderstood  by  some  readers — if  there  is  any 
danger  of  Henry  Aylwin,  the  hero  of  the  novel,  being 
confounded  with  Percy  Aylwin,  the  hero  of  this  poem — 
it  only  shows  how  difficult  it  is  for  the  poet  or  the  novelist 
(who  must  needs  see  his  characters  from  the  concave  side 
only)  to  realize  that  it  is  the  convex  side  only  which  he 
can  present  to  his  reader. 

The  fact  is  that  the  motive  of  '  Aylwin  ' — dealing 
only  as  it  does  with  that  which  is  elemental  and  un- 
changeable in  man — is  of  so  entirely  poetic  a  nature  that 
I  began  to  write  it  in  verse.  After  a  while,  however,  I 
found  that  a  story  of  so  many  incidents  and  complica- 
tions as  the  one  that  was  growing  under  my  hand  could 
only  be  told  in  prose.  This  was  before  I  had  written 
any  prose  at  all — ^yes,  it  is  so  long  ago  as  that.  And 
when,  afterwards,  I  began  to  write  criticism,  I  had  (for 
certain  reasons — important  then,  but  of  no  importance 
now)  abandoned  the  idea  of  offering  the  novel  to  the 


39°  Gorgios  and  Romanies 

outside  public  at  all.  Among  my  friends  it  had  been 
widely  read,  both  in  manuscript  and  in  type. 

But  with  regard  to  Romany  women,  Henry  Aylwin's 
feeling  towards  them  was  the  very  opposite  of  Percy's. 
When,  in  speaking  of  George  Borrow  some  years  ago, 
I  made  the  remark  that  between  Englishmen  of  a  cer- 
tain type  and  gypsy  women  there  is  an  extraordinary 
physical  attraction — an  attraction  which  did  not  exist 
between  Borrow  and  the  gypsy  women  with  whom 
he  was  brought  into  contact — I  was  thinking  specially 
of  the  character  depicted  here  under  the  name  of 
Percy  Aylwin.  And  I  asked  then  the  question — Sup- 
posing Borrow  to  have  been  physically  drawn  with  much 
power  towards  any  woman,  could  she  possibly  have  been 
Romany  ?  Would  she  not  rather  have  been  of  the 
Scandinavian  type  ? — would  she  not  have  been  what  he 
used  to  call  a  '  Brynhild  '  ?  From  many  conversations 
with  him  on  this  subject,  I  think  she  must  necessarily 
have  been  a  tall  blonde  of  the  type  of  Isopel  Berners — 
who,  by-the-by,  was  much  more  a  portrait  of  a  splendid 
East-Anglian  road-girl  than  is  generally  imagined.  And 
I  think,  besides,  that  Borrow's  sympathy  with  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  type  may  account  for  the  fact  that,  notwithstand- 
ing his  love  of  the  free  and  easy  economies  of  life  among 
the  better  class  of  Gryengroes,  his  gypsy  women  are  all 
what  have  been  called  '  scenic  characters.' 

When  he  comes  to  delineate  a  heroine,  she  is  the 
superb  Isopel  Berners — that  is  to  say,  she  is  physically 
(and  indeed  mentally,  too),  the  very  opposite  of  the 
Romany  chi.  It  was  here,  as  I  happen  to  know,  that 
Borrow's  sympathies  were  with  Henry  Aylwin  far  more 
than  with  Percy  Aylwin. 

The  type  of  the  Romany  chi,  though  very  delightful 
to  Henry  Aylwin  as  regards  companionship,  had  no  phy- 


The  Beauty  of  Sinfi  Lovell  391 

sical  attractions  for  him,  otherwise  the  witchery  of  the 
girl  here  called  Rhona  Boswell,  whom  he  knew  as  a  child 
long  before  Percy  Aylwin  knew  her,  must  surely  have 
eclipsed  such  charms  as  Winifred  Wynne  or  any  other 
winsome  *  Gorgie  '  could  possess.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  would,  I  believe,  have  been  impossible  for  Percy  Ayl- 
win to  be  brought  closely  and  long  in  contact  with  a 
Romany  girl  like  Sinfi  Lovell  and  remain  untouched  by 
those  unique  physical  attractions  of  hers — attractions 
that  made  her  universally  admired  by  the  best  judges  of 
female  beauty  as  being  the  most  splendid  '  face-model ' 
of  her  time,  and  as  being  in  form  the  grandest  woman 
ever  seen  in  the  studios — attractions  that  upon  Henry 
Aylwin  seem  to  have  made  almost  no  impression. 

There  is  no  accounting  for  this,  as  there  is  no  account- 
ing for  anything  connected  with  the  mysterious  witchery 
of  sex.  And  again,  the  strong  inscrutable  way  in  which 
some  gypsy  girls  are  drawn  towards  a  '  Tarno  Rye  '  (as 
a  young  English  gentleman  is  called),  is  quite  inexpli- 
cable. Some  have  thought — and  Borrow  was  one  of 
them — that  it  may  arise  from  that  infirmity  of  the  Ro- 
many Chal  which  causes  the  girls  to  '  take  their  own  part ' 
without  appealing  to  their  men-companions  for  aid — 
that  lack  of  masculine  chivalry  among  the  men  of  their 
own  race. 

And  now  for  a  word  or  two  upon  a  matter  in  con- 
nection with  '  Aylwin  '  and  '  The  Coming  of  Love  ' 
which  interests  me  more  deeply.  Some  of  those  who 
have  been  specially  attracted  towards  Sinfi  Lovell  have 
had  misgivings,  I  find,  as  to  whether  she  is  not  an  ideal- 
ization, an  impossible  Romany  chi,  and  some  of  those  who 
have  been  specially  attracted  towards  Rhona  Boswell 
have  had  the  same  misgivings  as  to  her. 

One  of  the  great  racial  specialities    of    the    Romany 


392  Gorgios  and   Romanies 

is  the  superiority  of  the  women  to  the  men.  For  it  is 
not  merely  in  intelligence,  in  imagination,  in  command 
over  language,  in  comparative  breadth  of  view  regarding 
the  Gorgio  world  that  the  Romany  women  (in  Great 
Britain,  at  least)  leave  the  men  far  behind.  In  every- 
thing that  goes  to  make  nobility  of  character  this  super- 
iority is  equally  noticeable.  To  imagine  a  gypsy  hero 
is,  I  will  confess,  rather  difficult.  Not  that  the  average 
male  gypsy  is  without  a  certain  amount  of  courage,  but 
it  soon  gives  way,  and,  in  a  conflict  between  a  gypsy  and 
an  Englishman,  it  always  seems  as  though  ages  of  oppres- 
sion have  damped  the  virility  of  Romany  stamina. 

Although  some  of  our  most  notable  prize-fighters 
have  been  gypsies,  it  used  to  be  well  known,  in  times 
when  the  ring  was  fashionable,  that  a  gypsy  could  not 
always  be  relied  upon  to  *  take  punishment '  with  the 
stolid  indifference  of  an  Englishman  or  a  negro,  partly, 
perhaps,  because  his  more  highly-strung  nervous  system 
makes  him  more  sensitive  to  pain. 

The  courage  of^  a  gypsy  woman,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  passed  into  a  proverb  ;  nothing  seems  to  daunt  it. 
This  superiority  of  the  women  to  the  men  extends  to 
everything,  unless,  perhaps,  we  except  that  gift  of  music 
for  which  the  gypsies  as  a  race  are  noticeable.  With 
regard  to  music,  however,  even  in  Eastern  Europe 
(Russia  alone  excepted),  where  gypsy  music  is  so  universal 
that,  according  to  some  writers,  every  Hungarian  musi- 
cian is  of  Romany  extraction,  it  is  the  men,  and  not,  in 
general,  the  women,  who  excel.  Those,  however,  who 
knew  Sinfi  Lovell  may  think  with  me  that  this  state  of 
things  may  simply  be  the  result  of  opportunity  and 
training." 


Chapter    XXVI 

'THE   COMING   OF    LOVE' 

IN  my  article  on  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  in  Chambers's 
'  Cyclopaedia  of  English  Literature  '  I  devoted  most 
of  my  space  to  '  The  Coming  of  Love.'  I  put  the  two 
great  romantic  poems  '  The  Coming  of  Love '  and 
'  Christmas  at  the  "  Mermaid  "  '  far  above  everything  he 
has  done.  I  think  I  see  both  in  the  conception  and  in 
the  execution  of  these  poems  the  promise  of  immortality — 
if  immortality  can  be  predicted  of  any  poems  of  our  time. 
In  reading  them  one  remembers  in  a  flash  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  own  noble  words  about  the  poetic  impulse  : — 

"  In  order  to  produce  poetry  the  soul  must  for  the 
time  being  have  reached  that  state  of  exaltation,  that 
state  of  freedom  from  self-consciousness,  depicted  in  the 
lines — 

I  started  once,  or  seemed  to  start,  in  pain 

Resolved  on  noble  things,  and  strove  to  speak, 

As  w^hen  a  great  thought  strikes  along  the  brain 
And  flushes  all  the  cheek. 

Whatsoever  may  be  the  poet's  'knowledge  of  his 
art,'  into  this  mood  he  must  always  pass  before  he  can 
write  a  truly  poetic  line.  For,  notwithstanding  all  that 
we  have  said  and  are  going  to  say  upon  poetry  as  a  fine 
art,  it  is  in  the  deepest  sense  of  the  word  an  '  inspiration  ' 
indeed.     No   man   can  write  a   line   of  genuine  poetry 


394  'The  Coming  of  Love' 

without  having  been  '  born  again  '  (or,  as  the  true  ren- 
dering of  the  text  says,  '  born  from  above  ')  ;  and  then 
the  mastery  over  those  highest  reaches  of  form  which  are 
beyond  the  ken  of  the  mere  versifier  comes  to  him  as  a 
result  of  the  change.  Hence,  with  all  Mrs.  Browning's 
metrical  blemishes,  the  splendour  of  her  metrical  tri- 
umphs at  her  best. 

For  what  is  the  deep  distinction  between  poet  and 
proseman  ?  A  writer  may  be  many  things  besides  a 
poet ;  he  may  be  a  warrior  like  .^Eschylus,  a  man  of  busi- 
ness like  Shakespeare,  a  courtier  like  Chaucer,  or  a  cos- 
mopolitan philosopher  like  Goethe  ;  but  the  moment 
the  poetic  mood  is  upon  him  all  the  trappings  of  the 
world  with  which  for  years  he  may  perhaps  have  been 
clothing  his  soul — the  world's  knowingness,  its  cynicism, 
its  self-seeking,  its  ambition — fall  away,  and  the  man 
becomes  an  inspired  child  again,  with  ears  attuned  to 
nothing  but  the  whispers  of  those  spirits  from  the  Gol- 
den Age,  who,  according  to  Hesiod,  haunt  and  bless  the 
degenerate  earth.  What  such  a  man  produces  may 
greatly  delight  and  astonish  his  readers,  yet  not  so 
greatly  as  it  delights  and  astonishes  himself.  His 
passages  of  pathos  draw  no  tears  so  deep  or  so  sweet  as 
those  that  fall  from  his  own  eyes  while  he  writes  ;  his 
sublime  passages  overawe  no  soul  so  imperiously  as  his 
own ;  his  humour  draws  no  laughter  so  rich  or  so  deep 
as  that  stirred  within  his  own  breast. 

It  might  almost  be  said,  indeed,  that  Sincerity  and 
Conscience,  the  two  angels  that  bring  to  the  poet  the 
wonders  of  the  poetic  dream,  bring  him  also  the  deepest, 
truest  delight  of  form.  It  might  almost  be  said  that  by 
aid  of  sincerity  and  conscience  the  poet  is  enabled  to  see 
more  clearly  than  other  men  the  eternal  limits  of  his  own 
art — to  see  with  Sophocles  that  nothing,  not  even  poetry 


How  a  True   Poet  Writes  395 

itself,  is  of  any  worth  to  man,  invested  as  he  is  by  the 
whole  army  of  evil,  unless  it  is  in  the  deepest  and  highest 
sense  good,  unless  it  comes  linking  us  all  together  by 
closer  bonds  of  sympathy  and  pity,  strengthening  us  to 
fight  the  foes  with  whom  fate  and  even  nature,  the  mother 
who  bore  us,  sometimes  seem  in  league — to  see  with 
Milton  that  the  high  quality  of  man's  soul  which  in 
English  is  expressed  by  the  word  virtue  is  greater  than 
even  the  great  poem  he  prized,  greater  than  all  the 
rhythms  of  all  the  tongues  that  have  been  spoken  since 
Babel — and  to  see  with  Shakespeare  and  with  Shelley 
that  the  high  passion  which  in  England  is  called  love  is 
lovelier  than  all  art,  lovelier  than  all  the  marble  Mer- 
curies that  '  await  the  chisel  of  the  sculptor  '  in  all  the 
marble  hills." 

The  reason  why  the  criticism  of  the  hour  does  not 
always  give  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  the  place  accorded  to  him 
by  his  great  contemporaries  is  not  any  lack  of  generosity  : 
it  arises  from  the  unprecedented,  not  to  say  eccentric, 
way  in  which  his  poetry  has  reached  the  public.  In 
this  respect  alone,  apart  from  its  great  originality, 
'  The  Coming  of  Love  '  is  a  curiosity  of  literature.  I 
know  nothing  in  the  least  like  the  history  of  this  poem. 
It  was  written,  circulated  in  manuscript  among  the 
very  elite  of  English  letters,  and  indeed  partly  pub- 
lished in  the  '  Athenaeum,'  very  nearly  a  quarter  of  a 
century  ago.  I  have  before  alluded  to  Mrs.  Chandler 
Moulton's  introduction  to  Philip  Bourke  Marston's  poems, 
where  she  says  that  it  was  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  poetry 
which  won  for  him  the  friendship  of  Tennyson,  Rossetti, 
Morris,  and  Swinburne.  Yet  for  lustre  after  lustre  it 
was  persistently  withheld  from  the  public  ;  cenacle  after 
poetic  cenacle  rose,  prospered  and  faded  away,  and  still 


39^  'The  Coming  of  Love' 

this  poet,  who  was  talked  of  by  all  the  poets  and  called 
'  the  friend  of  all  the  poets,'  kept  his  work  back  until  he 
had  passed  middle  age.  Then,  at  last,  owing  I  believe  to 
the  energetic  efforts  of  Mr.  John  Lane,  who  had  been  urg- 
ing the  matter  for  something  like  five  years,  he  launched 
a  volume  which  seized  upon  the  public  taste  and  won  a 
very  great  success  so  far  as  sales  go.  It  is  now  in  its  sixth 
edition.  There  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  that  if  the 
book  had  appeared,  as  it  ought  to  have  appeared,  at  the 
time  it  was  written,  critics  would  have  classed  the  poet 
among  his  compeers  and  he  would  have  come  down  to 
the  present  generation,  as  Swinburne  has  come  down, 
as  a  classic.  But,  as  I  have  said,  it  is  not  in  the 
least  surprising  that,  notwithstanding  Rossetti's  intense 
admiration  of  the  poem,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that 
Morris  intended  to  print  it  at  the  Kelmscott  Press,  and 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  Swinburne,  in  dedicating 
the  collected  edition  of  his  works  to  Mr.  Watts-Dunton, 
addresses  him  as  a  poet  of  the  greatest  authority — it 
is  only  the  true  critics  who  see  in  the  right  perspec- 
tive a  poet  who  has  so  perversely  neglected  his  chances. 
If  his  time  of  recognition  has  not  yet  fully  come,  this 
generation  is  not  to  blame.  The  poet  can  blame  only 
himself,  although  to  judge  by  Rossetti's  words,  and 
by  the  following  lines  from  Dr.  Hake's  '  New  Day,'  he  is 
indifferent  to  that  : — 

You  tell  me  life  is  all  too  rich  and  brief, 

Too  various,  too  delectable  a  game, 
To  give  to  art,  entirely  or  in  chief  ; 

And  love  of  Nature  quells  the  thirst  for  fame. 

The  '  parable  poet '  then  goes  on  to  give  voice  to  the 
opinion,  not  only  of  himself,  but  of  most  of  the  great 
poets  of  the  mid- Victorian  epoch  : — 


The  Poet's  Seeing  Power  397 

You  who  in  youth  the  cone-paved  forest  sought, 

Musing  until  the  pines  to  musing  fell ; 
You  who  by  river-path  the  witchery  caught 

Of  waters  moving  under  stress  of  spell ; 
You  who  the  seas  of  metaphysics  crossed, 

And  yet  returned  to  art's  consoling  haven — 
Returned  from  whence  so  many  souls  are  lost, 

With  wisdom's  seal  upon  your  forehead  graven — 
WeU  may  you  now  abandon  learning's  seat. 

And  work  the  ore  all  seek,  not  many  find ; 
No  sign-post  need  you  to  direct  your  feet. 

You  draw  no  riches  from  another's  mind. 
Hail  Nature's  coming  ;  bygone  be  the  past ; 
Hail  her  New  Day  ;    it  breaks  for  man  at  last. 

Fulfil  the  new-born  dream  of  Poesy  ! 

Give  her  your  life  in  full,  she  turns  from  less — 
Your  life  in  fuU — like  those  who  did  not  die. 

Though  death  holds  all  they  sang  in  dark  duress. 
You,  knowing  Nature  to  the  throbbing  core, 

You  can  her  wordless  prophecies  rehearse. 
The  murmers  others  heard  her  heart  outpour 

Swell  to  an  anthem  in  your  richer  verse. 
If  wider  vision  brings  a  vdder  scope 

For  art,  and  depths  profounder  for  emotion. 
Yours  be  the  song  whose  master-tones  shall  ope 

A  new  poetic  heaven  o'er  earth  and  ocean. 
The  New  Day  comes  apace  ;  its  virgin  fame 
Be  yours,  to  fan  the  fiery  soul  to  flame. 

Indeed,  he  has  often  said  to  me  :  '  There  is  a  tide  in 
the  affairs  of  men,  and  I  did  not  throw  myself  upon  my 
little  tide  until  it  was  too  late,  and  I  am  not  going  to 
repine  now.'  For  my  part,  I  have  been  a  student  of 
English  poetry  all  my  life — it  is  my  chief  subject  of  study 
— and  I  predict  that  when  poetic  imagination  is  again 
perceived  to  be  the  supreme  poetic  gift,  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's   genius   will     be     acclaimed.     In     respect    of 


398  'The  Coming  of  Love  * 

imaginative  power,  apart  from  the  other  poetic  qualities 
— '  the  power  of  seeing  a  dramatic  situation  and  flashing 
it  upon  the  physical  senses  of  the  listener,'  none  of  his 
contemporaries  have  surpassed  him. 

I  have  said  in  print  more  than  once  that  I,  a  Celt 
myself,  can  see  more  Celtic  glamour  in  his  poetry  than 
in  many  of  the  Celtic  poets  of  our  time.  And,  if  we  are 
to  judge  by  the  vogue  of  *  The  Coming  of  Love  '  and 
*  Aylwin  '  in  Wales,  the  Welsh  people  seem  to  see  it 
very  clearly.  Take,  for  instance,  the  sonnet  called  '  The 
Mirrored  Stars '  again,  given  on  page  29.  It  is  impos- 
sible for  Celtic  glamour  to  go  further  than  this ;  and  yet 
it  is  rarely  noted  by  critics  in  discussing  the  Celtic  note 
in  poetry. 

In  order  fully  to  understand  '  The  Coming  of  Love  ' 
it  is  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  a  distinction  between  the 
two  kinds  of  poetry  upon  which  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has 
often  dwelt.  "  There  are,"  he  tells  us,  "  but  two  kinds 
of  poetry,  but  two  kinds  of  art — that  which  interprets, 
and  that  which  represents.  '  Poetry  is  apparent  pic- 
tures of  unapparent  realities,'  says  the  Eastern  mind 
through  Zoroaster  ;  '  the  highest,  the  only  operation  of 
art  is  representation  (Gestaltung),'  says  the  Western 
mind  through  Goethe.  Both  are  right."  Madame 
Galimberti  has  called  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  '  the  poet  of 
the  sunrise ' :  There  are  richer  descriptions  of  sun- 
rise in  '  Aylwin  '  and  '  The  Coming  of  Love  '  than  in 
any  other  writer  I  know.  "  Few  poets,"  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  says,  "have  been  successful  in  painting  a  sun- 
rise, for  the  simple  reason  that,  save  through  the  bed- 
curtains,  they  do  not  often  see  one.  They  think 
that  all  they  have  to  do  is  to  paint  a  sunset,  which  they 
sometimes  do  see,  and  call  it  a  sunrise.  They  are  en- 
tirely mistaken,  however  ;    the  two  phenomena  are  both 


'  The  Poet  of  the  Sunrise  '  399 

like  and  unlike.  Between  the  cloud-pageantry  of  sun- 
rise and  of  sunset  the  difference  to  the  student  of  Nature 
is  as  apparent  as  is  the  difference  to  the  poet  between 
the  various  forms  of  his  art." 

'  The  Coming  of  Love  '  shows  that  independence  of 
contemporary  vogues  and  influences  which  characterizes 
all  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  work,  whether  in  verse  or  prose, 
whether  in  romance  or  criticism,  or  in  that  analysis  and 
exposition  of  the  natural  history  of  minds  about  which 
Sainte  Beuve  speaks.  It  was  as  a  poet  that  his  energies 
were  first  exercised,  but  this  for  a  long  time  was  known 
only  to  his  poetical  friends.  His  criticism  came  many 
years  afterwards,  and,  as  Rossetti  used  to  say,  '  his  cri- 
tical work  consists  of  generalizations  of  his  own  experience 
in  the  poet's  workshop.'  For  many  years  he  was  known 
only  in  his  capacity  as  a  critic.  James  Russell  Lowell  is 
reported  to  have  said  :  *  Our  ablest  critics  hitherto 
have  been  i8-carat ;  Theodore  Watts  goes  nearer  the 
pure  article.'  Mr.  William  Sharp,  in  his  study  of  Ros- 
setti, says  :  '  In  every  sense  of  the  word  the  friendship 
thus  begun  resulted  in  the  greatest  benefit  to  the  elder 
writer,  the  latter  having  greater  faith  in  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  literary  judgment  than  seems  characteristic 
with  so  dominant  and  individual  an  intellect  as  that  of 
Rossetti.  Although  the  latter  knew  well  the  sonnet- 
literature  of  Italy  and  England,  and  was  a  much-prac- 
tised master  of  the  heart's  key  himself,  I  have  heard  him 
on  many  occasions  refer  to  Theodore  Watts  as  having 
still  more  thorough  knowledge  on  the  subject,  and  as 
being  the  most  original  sonnet-writer  living.' 

*  Aylwin  '  and  '  The  Coming  of  Love  '  are  vitally 
connected  with  the  poet's  peculiar  critical  message. 
Henry  Aylwin  and  Percy  Aylwin  may  be  regarded  as  the 
embodiment  of  his  philosophy  of  life.     The  very  popu- 


400  '  The  Coming  of  Love  ' 

larity  of  '  Aylwin  '  and  '  The  Coming  of  Love  '  is  apt 
to  make  readers  forget  the  profundity  of  the  philoso- 
phical thought  upon  which  they  are  based,  although  this 
profundity  has  been  indicated  by  such  competent  critics 
as  Dr.  Robertson  Nicoll  in  the  '  Contemporary  Re- 
view,' M.  Maurice  Muret  in  the  '  Journal  des  Debats,' 
and  other  thoughtful  writers.  Upon  the  inner  meaning 
of  the  romance  and  the  poem  I  have,  however,  ideas  of 
my  own  to  express,  which  are  not  in  full  accordance  with 
any  previous  criticisms.  To  me  it  seems  that  the  two 
cousins,  Henry  Aylwin  of  the  romance,  and  Percy  Aylwin 
of  the  poem,  are  phases  of  a  modern  Hamlet,  a  Hamlet 
who  has  travelled  past  the  pathetic  superstitions  of  the 
old  cosmogonies  to  the  last  milestone  of  doubting  hope  and 
questioning  fear,  a  Hamlet  who  stands  at  the  portals  of 
the  outer  darkness,  gazing  with  eyes  made  wistful  by  the 
loss  of  a  beloved  woman.  In  both  the  romance  and  the 
poem  the  theme  is  love  at  war  with  death.  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton,  in  his  preface  to    the    illustrated    edition    of 

*  Aylwin  '  says  : — 

*'  It  is  a  story  written  as  a  comment  on  Love's  war- 
fare with  death — written  to  show  that,  confronted  as  man 
is  every  moment  by  signs  of  the  fragility  and  brevity  of 
human  life,  the  great  marvel  connected  with  him  is  not 
that  his  thoughts  dwell  frequently  upon  the  unknown 
country  beyond  Orion,  where  the  beloved  dead  are  loving 
us  still,  but  that  he  can  find  time  and  patience  to  think 
upon  anything  else  :  a  story  written  further  to  show  how 
terribly  despair  becomes  intensified  when  a  man  has  lost 
—or  thinks  he  has  lost — a  woman  whose  love  was  the 
only  light  of  his  world — when  his  soul  is  torn  from  his 
body,  as  it  were,  and  whisked  off  on  the  wings  of  the 

*  viewless  winds  '  right  away  beyond  the  farthest  star,  till 


The  Sailor-Poet  and  the  Gypsy  401 

the  universe  hangs  beneath  his  feet  a  trembhng  point  of 
twinkhng  hght,  and  at  last  even  this  dies  away  and  his 
soul  cries  out  for  help  in  that  utter  darkness  and  loneli- 
ness. It  was  to  depict  this  phase  of  human  emotion 
that  both  *  Aylwin  '  and  '  The  Coming  of  Love  '  were 
written.  They  were  missives  from  the  lonely  watch- 
tower  of  the  writer's  soul,  sent  out  into  the  strange  and 
busy  battle  of  the  world — sent  out  to  find,  if  possible, 
another  soul  or  two  to  whom  the  watcher  was,  without 
knowing  it,  akin.  In  *  Aylwin  '  the  problem  is  sym- 
bolized by  the  victory  of  love  over  sinister  circum- 
stance, whereas  in  the  poem  it  is  symbolized  by  a 
mystical  dream  of  *  Natura  Benigna.' 

In  *  The   Coming   of  Love  '  Percy  Aylwin  is  a  poet 
and  a  sailor,  with  such  an  absorbing  love  for  the  sea  that 
he  has  no  room  for  any  other  passion  ;    to  him  an  im- 
prisoned seabird  is  a  sufferer  almost  more  pitiable  than 
any  imprisoned   man,  as  will  be  seen   by  the   opening 
section  of   the  poem,  '  Mother  Carey's  Chicken.'     On 
seeing  a  storm-petrel  in  a  cage  on  a  cottage  wall  near 
Gypsy  Dell,    he  takes  down    the  cage  in  order   to   re- 
lease the  bird  ;   then,  carrying  the  bird  in  the  cage,  he 
turns  to  cross  a  rustic  wooden  bridge  leading  past  Gypsy 
Dell,  when  he  suddenly  comes  upon  a  landsman  friend 
of  his,  a  Romany  Rye,  who  is  just  parting  from  a  young 
gypsy-girl.     Gazing  at  her  beauty,  Percy  stands  dazzled 
and   forgets   the   petrel.      It  is  symbolical  of  the  inner 
meaning    of  the    story   that   the    bird    now  flies    away 
through    the    half-open    door.      From     that     moment, 
through  the  magic  of  love,  the  land  to  Percy  is  richer 
than   the   sea  :    this  ends  the   first  phase  of    the    story. 
The    first    kiss    between    the    two    lovers    is    thus    de- 
scribed : — 

W.-D.  26 


402  *  The  Coming  of  Love  ' 

If  only  in  dreams  may  Man  be  fully  blest,  ■;  ■  ' . 

Is  heaven  a  dream  ?     Is  she  I  claspt  a  dream  ? 
Or  stood  she  here  even  now  vi^here  dew-drops  gleam 
And  miles  of  furze  shine  yellow  down  the  West  ? 
I  seem  to  clasp  her  still — still  on  my  breast 
'  Her  bosom  beats :    I  see  the  bright  eyes  beam. 

I  think  she  kissed  these  lips,  for  now  they  seem 
Scarce  mine  :    so  hallowed  of  the  lips  they  pressed. 
Yon  thicket's  breath — can  that  be  eglantine  i 
Those  birds — can  they  be  Morning's  choristers  ? 
Can  this  be  Earth  ?     Can  these  be  banks  of  furze  ? 
Like  burning  bushes  fired  of  God  they  shine  ! 
I  seem  to  know  them,  though  this  body  of  mine 
Passed  into  spirit  at  the  touch  of  hers  ! 

Percy  stays  with  the  gypsies,  and  the  gypsy-girl, 
Rhona,  teaches  him  Romany.  This  arouses  the  jealousy 
of  a  gypsy  rival — Heme  the  '  Scollard.'  Percy  Aylwin's 
family  afterwards  succeeds  in  separating  him  from  her, 
and  he  is  again  sent  to  sea.  While  cruising  among  the 
coral  islands  he  receives  the  letter  from  Rhona  which 
paints  her  character  with  unequalled  vividness  : — 

;•     •  RHONA'S    LETTER  ' 

On  Christmas  Eve  I  seed  in  dreams  the  day 
When  Heme  the  Scollard  come  and  said  to  me, 
gentleman    He  s  off,  that  rye  o  yourn,  gone  clean  away 
Till  swallow-time  ;    hes  left  tliis  letter  :    see. 
In  dreams  I  heerd  the  bee  and  grasshopper, 
Like  on  that  mornin,  buz  in  Rington  Hollow, 
die        Shell  live  till  swallow-time  and  then  shell  mer, 
gentleman     For  never  will  a  rye  come  back  to  her 

Wot  leaves  her  till  the  comin  o  the  swallow. 

All  night  I  heerd  them  bees  and  grasshoppers ; 
All  night  I  smelt  the  breath  o  grass  and  may, 
Mixed  sweet  wi'  smells  o  honey  from  the  furze 
Like  on  that  mornin  when  you  went  away  ; 


Rhona's  Love-Letter 


403 


laugh 

girl -whole 

tents  :  waggons 

horses 


All  night  I  heerd  in  dreams  my  daddy  sal, 
Sayin,  De  blessed  chi  ud  give  de  choUo 

0  Bozzles  breed — tans,  vardey,  greis,  and  all — 

To  see  dat  tarno  rye  o  hern  palall  back 

Wots  left  her  till  the  comin  o  the  swallow. 

1  woke  and  went  a-walkin  on  the  ice 

All  white  with  snow-dust,  just  like  sparklin  loon,  salt 

And  soon  beneath  the  stars  I  heerd  a  vice, 

A  vice  I  knowed  and  often,  often  shoon  ;  hear 

An  then  I  seed  a  shape  as  thin  as  tuv ;  smoke 

I  knowed  it  wur  my  blessed  mammy  s  moUo.^  spirit 

Rhona,  she  sez,  that  tarno  rye  you  love, 

He  s  thinkin  on  you  ;    don  t  you  go  and  rove  ;  weep 

You  11  see  him  at  the  comin  o  the  swallow. 

Sez  she.  For  you  it  seemed  to  kill  the  grass 

When  he  wur  gone,  and  freeze  the  brooklets  gillies  ;        songs 

There  wornt  no  smell,  dear,  in  the  sweetest  cas,  hay 

And  when  the  summer  brought  the  water-lilies. 

And  when  the  sweet  winds  waved  the  golden  giv,  wheat 

The  skies  above  em  seemed  as  bleak  and  koUo  ^  black 

As  now,  when  all  the  world  seems  frozen  yiv.  snow 

The  months  are  long,  but  mammy  says  you  11  live 

By  thinkin  o  the  comin  o  the  swallow. 

She  sez,  The  whinchat  soon  wi  silver  throat 

Will  meet  the  stonechat  in  the  buddin  whin. 

And  soon  the  blackcaps  airliest  gillie  uU  float  song 

From  light-green  boughs  through  leaves  a-peepin  thin  ; 

The  wheat-ear  soon  uU  bring  the  willow-wren, 

And  then  the  fust  fond  nightingale  ull  follow, 

A-callin  Come,  dear,  to  his  laggin  hen 

Still  out  at  sea,  the  spring  is  in  our  glen  ; 

Come,  darlin,  wi  the  comin  o  the  swallow. 


1  Mostly  pronounced  '  muUo,'  but  sometimes  in  the  East  Midlands 
'  mollo.' 

'  Mostly  pronounced  '  kaulo,'  but  sometimes  in  the  East  Midlands 
'  koUo.' 


404  '  The  Coming  of  Love  ' 


And  she  wur  gone  !     And  then  I  read  the  words 
In  mornin  twilight  wot  you  rote  to  me ; 
They  made  the  Christmas  sing  with  summer  birds, 
And  spring-leaves  shine  on  every  frozen  tree ; 
And  when  the  dawnin  kindled  Rington  spire, 
And  curdlin  winter-clouds  burnt  gold  and  lollo 
Round  the  dear  sun,  wot  seemed  a  yolk  o  fire, 
Another  night,  I  sez,  has  brought  him  nigher  ; 
He  s  comin  wi  the  comin  o  the  swallow. 


red 


And  soon  the  bull-pups  found  me  on  the  Pool — 
You  know  the  way  they  barks  to  see  me  slide — 
But  when  the  skatin  bors  o  Rington  scool 
Comed  on,  it  turned  my  head  to  see  em  glide. 
I  seemed  to  see  you  twirlin  on  your  skates. 
And  somethin  made  me  clap  my  hans  and  hollo  ; 
cutting       It  s  him,  I  sez,  achinnin  o  them  8s. 

But  when  I  woke-like — Im  the  gal  wot  waits 
Alone,  I  sez,  the  comin  o  the  swallow. 

Comin  seemed  ringin  in  the  Christmas-chime  ; 

Comin  seemed  rit  on  everything  I  seed, 

In  beads  o  frost  along  the  nets  o  rime, 

Sparklin  on  every  frozen  rush  and  reed  ; 

And  when  the  pups  began  to  bark  and  play. 

And  frisk  and  scrabble  and  bite  my  frock  and  wallow 

Among  the  snow  and  fling  it  up  like  spray, 

I  says  to  them,  You  know  who  rote  to  say 

He  s  comin  wi  the  comin  o  the  swallow. 

The  thought  on  t  makes  the  snow-drifts  o  December 
Shine  gold,  I  sez,  like  daffodils  o  spring 
Wot  wait  beneath  :    hes  comin,  pups,  remember  ; 
If  not — for  me  no  singin  birds  uU  sing  : 
cuckoo        No  choring  chiriklo  ull  hold  the  gale 

Wi  Cuckoo,  cuckoo,!  over  hill  and  hollow  : 
Therell  be  no  crakin  o  the  meadow-rail, 


'  The  gypsies  arc  great  observers  of  the  cuckoo,  and  call  certain  spring 
winds  '  cuckoo  storms,'  because  they  bring  over  the  cuckoo  earUer  than 
usual. 


Rhona  Waking  at  Dawn  405 

Therell  be  no  Jug-jug  o  the  nightingale, 
For  her  wot  waits  the  comin  o  the  swallow. 

Come  back,  minaw,  and  you  may  kiss  your  han  mine  own 

To  that  fine  rawni  rowin  on  the  river ;  lady 

1 11  never  call  that  lady  a  chovihan  witch 

Nor  yit  a  mumply  gorgie — I'll  forgive  her.  miserable  Gentile 

Come  back,  minaw :    I  wur  to  be  your  wife. 
Come  back — or,  say  the  word,  and  I  will  follow 
Your  footfalls  round  the  world  :    111  leave  this  life 
(Ive  flung  away  a-ready  that  ere  knife) — 
I  m  dyin  for  the  comin  o  the  swallow. 

Percy  returns  to  England  and  reaches  Gypsy  Dell  at 
the  very  moment  when  '  the  Schollard,'  maddened 
by  the  discovery  that  Rhona  is  to  meet  Percy  that 
night,  has  drawn  his  knife  upon  the  girl  under  the  star- 
light by  the  river-bank.  Percy  on  one  side  of  the  river 
witnesses  the  death-struggle  on  the  other  side  without 
being  able  to  go  to  Rhona's  assistance.  But  the  girl 
hurls  her  antagonist  into  the  water,  and  he  is  drowned. 
There  are  other  witnesses — the  stars,  whose  reflected 
light,  according  to  a  gypsy  superstition,  writes  in  the 
water,  just  above  where  the  drowned  man  sank,  mys- 
terious runes,  telling  the  story  of  the  deed.  For  a 
Romany  woman  who  marries  a  Gorgio  the  penalty  is 
death.  Nevertheless,  Rhona  marries  Percy.  I  will 
quote  the  sonnets  describing  Rhona  as  she  wakes  in  the 
tent  at  dawn  : — 

The  young  light  peeps  through  yonder  trembling  chink 

The  tent's  mouth  makes  in  answer  to  a  breeze  ; 

The  rooks  outside  are  stirring  in  the  trees 

Through  which  I  see  the  deepening  bars  of  pink. 

I  hear  the  earliest  anvil's  tingling  clink 

From  Jasper's  forge  ;    the  cattle  on  the  leas 

Begin  to  low.     She's  waking  by  degrees : 


4o6  '  The  Coming  of  Love  ' 

Sleep's  rosy  fetters  melt,  but  link  by  link. 

What  dream  is  hers  ?     Her  eyelids  shake  with  tears  ; 

The  fond  eyes  open  now  like  flowers  in  dew : 

She  sobs  I  know  not  what  of  passionate  fears : 

"  You'll  never  leave  me  now  ?     There  is  but  you  ; 

I  dreamt  a  voice  was  whispering  in  my  ears, 

'  The  Dukkeripen  o'  stars  comes  ever  true.' " 

She  rises,  startled  by  a  wandering  bee 

Buzzing  around  her  brow  to  greet  the  girl  : 

She  draws  the  tent  wide  open  with  a  swirl. 

And,  as  she  stands  to  breathe  the  fragrancy 

Beneath  the  branches  of  the  hawthorn  tree — 

Whose  dews  fall  on  her  head  like  beads  of  pearl, 

Or  drops  of  sunshine  firing  tress  and  curl — 

The  Spirit  of  the  Sunrise  speaks  to  me. 

And  says,  *  This  bride  of  yours,  I  know  her  well, 

And  so  do  all  the  birds  in  all  the  bowers 

Who  mix  their  music  with  the  breath  of  flowers 

When  greetings  rise  from  river,  heath  and  dell. 

See,  on  the  curtain  of  the  morning  haze  >. 

The  Future's  finger  writes  of  happy  days.' 

Rhona,  half-hidden  by '  the  branches  of  the  hawthorn 
tree,'  stretches  up  to  kiss  the  white  and  green  May  buds 
overhanging  the  bridal  tent,  while  Percy  Aylwin  stands 
at  the  tent's  mouth  and  looks  at  her  : — 

Can  this  be  she,  who,  on  that  fateful  day 

When  Romany  knives  leapt  out  at  me  like  stings 
Hurled  back  the  men,  who  shrank  like  stricken  things 

From  Rhona's  eyes,  whose  lightnings  seemed  to  slay  ? 

Can  this  be  she,  half-hidden  in  the  may, 

Kissing  the  buds  for  '  luck  o'  love  '  it  brings. 
While  from  the  dingle  grass  the  skylark  springs 

And  merle  and  mavis  answer  finch  and  jay  ? 

[He  goes  up  to  the  hawthorn,  pulls  the  branches 
upart,  and  clasps  her  in  his  arms. 


'  Kissing  the  May-buds '  407 

Can  she  here,  covering  with  her  childish  kisses 
These  pearly  buds — can  she  so  soft,  so  tender, 

So  shaped  for  clasping — dowered  of  all  love-blisses — 
Be  my  fierce  girl  whose  love  for  me  would  send  her, 

An  angel  storming  hell,  through  death's  abysses. 

Where  never  a  sight  could  fright  or  power  could  bend  her  ? 

But  Rhona  is  haunted  by  forebodings,  and  one  night 
when  the  lovers  are  on  the  river  she  reads  the  scripture 
of  the  stars.  I  must  give  here  the  sonnet  quoted  on 
page  29  :— 

The  mirrored  stars  lit  all  the  bulrush-spears, 
And  all  the  flags  and  broad-leaved  lily-isles ; 
The  ripples  shook  the  stars  to  golden  smiles, 
Then  smoothed  them  back  to  happy  golden  spheres. 
We  rowed — we  sang ;    her  voice  seemed  in  mine  ears 
An  angel's,  yet  with  woman's  dearer  wiles ; 
But  shadows  fell  from  gathering  cloudy  piles 
And  ripples  shook  the  stars  to  fiery  tears. 

What  shaped  those  shadows  like  another  boat 
Where  Rhona  sat  and  he  Love  made  a  liar  ? 
There,  where  the  Scollard  sank,  I  saw  it  float, 
While  ripples  shook  the  stars  to  symbols  dire ; 
We  wept — we  kissed — while  starry  fingers  wrote. 
And  ripples  shook  the  stars  to  a  snake  of  fire. 

The  most  tragically  dramatic  scene  in  the  poem  is  that 
in  which  Percy  confronts  the  cosmic  myst  ''v,  defying 
its  menace.     The  stars  write  in  the  river  : — 
Falsehold  can  never  shield  her  :    Truth  is  strong. 

Percy  reads  the  rune  and  answers  : — 

I  read  your  rune  :   is  there  no  pity,  then, 
In  Heav'n  that  wove  this  net  of  life  for  men  ? 
Have  only  Hell  and  Falsehood  heart  for  ruth  ? 
Show  me,  ye  mirrored  stars,  this  tyrant  Truth — 

King  that  can  do  no  wrong  ! 
Ah  !     Night  seems  opening  !     There,  above  the  skies. 


4o8  '  The  Coming  of  Love  ' 

Who  sits  upon  that  central  sun  for  throne 
Round  which  a  golden  sand  of  worlds  is  strown, 
Stretching  right  onward  to  an  endless  ocean, 
Far,  far  away,  of  Hving,  dazzhng  motion  ? 
Hearken,  King  Truth,  with  pictures  in  thine  eyes 
Mirrored  from  gates  beyond  the  furthest  portal 
Of  infinite  light,  'tis  Love  that  stands  immortal, 
The  King  of  Kings. 

The  gypsies  read  the  starry  rune,  and,  discovering 
Rhona's  secret,  secretly  slay  her.  Percy,  having  returned 
to  Gypsy  Dell,  vainly  tries  to  find  her  grave.  Then  he 
flies  from  the  dingle,  lest  the  memory  of  Rhona  should 
drive  him  mad,  and  lives  alone  in  the  Alps,  where  he  passes 
into  the  strange  ecstasy,  described  in  the  sonnet  called 
*  Natura  Maligna,'  which  has  been  much  discussed  by 
the  critics  : — 

The  Lady  of  the  Hills  with  crimes  untold 

Followed  my  feet  with  azure  eyes  of  prey  ; 

By  glacier-brink  she  stood — by  cataract-spray — 

When  mists  were  dire,  or  avalanche-echoes  rolled. 

At  night  she  glimmered  in  the  death- wind  cold, 

And  if  a  footprint  shone  at  break  of  day, 

My  flesh  would  quail,  but  straight  my  soul  would  say  : 

'  'Tis  hers  whose  hand  God's  mightier  hand  doth  hold.' 

I  trod  her  snow-bridge,  for  the  moon  was  bright, 

Her  icicle-arch  across  the  sheer  crevasse. 

When  lo,  she  stood  !  .  .  .  God  made  her  let  me  pass. 

Then  felled  the  bridge  !  .  .  ,  Oh,  there  in  sallow  light, 

There  down  the  chasm,  I  saw  her  cruel,  white. 

And  all  my  wondrous  days  as  in  a  glass. 

This  awful  vision,  quick  with  supernatural  seership,  is 
unique  in  poetry.  Sir  George  Birdwood,  the  orientalist, 
wrote  in  the  'Athenaeum '  of  February  5,  1881  :  "Even 
in  its  very  epithets  it  is  just  such  a  hymn  as  a  Hindu 
Puritan  (Saivite)  would  address  to  Kali  ('  the  malignant ') 


The  Call  of  New- Year's  Morning       409 

or  Parvati  ('the  mountaineer').  It  is  to  be  dehvered 
from  her  that  Hindus  shriek  to  God  in  the  delirium 
of  their  fear." 

Then  we  are  shown  Percy  standing  at  midnight  in 
front  of  his  hut,  while  New  Year's  morning  is  break- 
ing :— 

Through  Fate's  mysterious  warp  another  weft 

Of  days  is  cast ;   and  see  !     Time's  star-built  throne, 
From  which  he  greets  a  new-born  year,  is  shown 

Between  yon  curtains  where  the  clouds  are  cleft ! 

Old  Year,  while  here  I  stand,  with  heart  bereft 
Of  all  that  was  its  music — stand  alone. 
Remembering  happy  hours  for  ever  flown. 

Impatient  of  the  leaden  minutes  left — 

The  plaudits  of  mankind  that  once  gave  pleasure. 
The  chidings  of  mankind  that  once  gave  pain, 

Seem  in  this  hermit  hut  beyond  all  measure 
Barren  and  foolish,  and  I  cry,  '  No  grain. 

No  grain,  but  winnowings  in  the  harvest  sieve  !  ' 

And  yet  I  cannot  join  the  dead — and  live. 

Old  Year,  what  bells  are  ringing  in  the  New 
In  England,  heedless  of  the  knells  they  ring 
To  you  and  those  whose  sorrow  makes  you  cling 

Each  to  the  other  ere  you  say  adieu  ! — 

I  seem  to  hear  their  chimes — the  chimes  we  knew 
In  those  dear  days  when  Rhona  used  to  sing, 
Greeting  a  New  Year's  Day  as  bright  of  wing 

As  this  whose  pinions  soon  will  rise  to  view. 

If  these  dream-bells  which  come  and  mock  mine  ears 
Could  bring  the  past  and  make  it  live  again. 
Yea,  live  with  every  hour  of  grief  and  pain. 

And  hopes  deferred  and  all  the  grievous  fears — 
And  with  the  past  bring  her  I  weep  in  vain — 

Then  would  I  bless  them,  though  I  blessed  in  tears. 

[The  clouds  move  away  and  show  the 
stars  in  dazzling  brightness. 

Those  stars  !    they  set  my  rebel-pulses  beating 

Against  the  tyrant  Sorrow,  him  who  drove 


41  o  *  The  Coming  of  Love' 

My  footsteps  from  the  Dell  and  haunted  Grove — 
They  bring  the  mighty  Mother's  new-year  greeting  : 

*  All  save  great  Nature  is  a  vision  fleeting ' — 

So  says  the  scripture  of  those  orbs  above. 

'  All,  all,'  I  cry,  '  except  man's  dower  of  love  ! — 
Love  is  no  child  of  Nature's  mystic  cheating  ! ' 

And  yet  it  comes  again,  the  old  desire 
To  read  what  yonder  constellations  write 
On  river  and  ocean — secrets  of  the  night — 

To  feel  again  the  spirit's  wondering  fire 

Which,  ere  this  passion  came,  absorbed  me  quite, 

To  catch  the  master-note  of  Nature's  lyre. 

New  Year,  the  stars  do  not  forget  the  Old  ! 

And  yet  they  say  to  me,  most  sorely  stung 

By  Fate  and  Death,  *  Nature  is  ever  young, 
Clad  in  new  riches,  as  each  morning's  gold 
Blooms  o'er  a  blasted  land  :   be  thou  consoled  : 

The  Past  was  great,  his  harp  was  greatly  strung  ; 

The  Past  was  great,  his  songs  were  greatly  sung  ; 
The  Past  was  great,  his  tales  were  greatly  told  ; 

The  Past  has  given  to  man  a  wondrous  world, 
But  curtains  of  old  Night  were  being  upcurled 

Whilst  thou  wast  mourning  Rhona  ;   things  sublime 
In  worlds  of  worlds  were  breaking  on  the  sight 
>_  Of  Youth's  fresh  runners  in  the  lists  of  Time. 

Arise,  and  drink  the  wine  of  Nature's  light ! ' 

Finally,  a  dream  prepares  the  sorrowing  lover  for  the 
true  reading  of  *  The  Promise  of  the  Sunrise  '  and  the 
revelation  of  '  Natura  Benigna  ' : — 

Beneath  the  loveliest  dream  there  coils  a  fear  : 

Last  night  came  she  whose  eyes  are  memories  now  ; 

Her  far-off  gaze  seemed  all  forgetful  how 

Love  dimmed  them  once,  so  calm  they  shone  and  clear. 

'  Sorrow,'  I  said,  '  has  made  me  old,  my  dear  ; 

'Tis  I,  indeed,  but  grief  can  change  the  brow  : 

Beneath  my  load  a  seraph's  neck  might  bow, 


'  Natura  Benigna  '  411 

Vigils  like  mine  would  blanch  an  angel's  hair.' 

Oh,  then  I  saw,  I  saw  the  sweet  lips  move ! 

I  saw  the  love-mists  thickening  in  her  eyes — 

I  heard  a  sound  as  if  a  murmuring  dove 

Felt  lonely  in  the  dells  of  Paradise  ; 

But  when  upon  my  neck  she  fell,  my  love. 

Her  hair  smelt  sweet  of  whin  and  woodland  spice. 

And  now  *  Natura  Benigna '  reveals  to  him  her  mystic 
consolation  : — 

What  power  is  this  ?     What  witchery  wins  my  feet 

To  peaks  so  sheer  they  scorn  the  cloaking  snow. 

All  silent  as  the  emerald  gulfs  below, 

Down  whose  ice-walls  the  wings  of  twilight  beat  ? 

What  thrill  of  earth  and  heaven — most  wild,  most  sweet — 

What  answering  pulse  that  all  the  senses  know, 

Comes  leaping  from  the  ruddy  eastern  glow 

Where,  far  away,  the  skies  and  mountains  meet  ? 

Mother,  'tis  I,  reborn  :    I  know  thee  well : 

That  throb  I  know  and  all  it  prophesies, 

O  Mother  and  Queen,  beneath  the  olden  spell 

Of  silence,  gazing  from  thy  hills  and  skies  ! 

Dumb  Mother,  struggling  with  the  years  to  tell 

The  secret  at  thy  heart  through  helpless  eyes. 

This  is  not  the  pathetic  fallacy.  It  is  the  poetic 
interpretation  of  the  latest  discovery  of  science,  to  wit, 
that  dead  matter  is  alive,  and  that  the  universe  is  an 
infinite  stammering  and  whispering,  that  may  be  heard 
only  by  the  poet's  finer  ear. 

The  extracts  I  have  given  are  sufficient  to  show  the 
originality  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  poetry,  both  in  subject 
and  in  form.  The  originality  of  any  poet  is  seen,  not  in 
fantastic  metrical  experiments,  but  rather  in  new  and 
original  treatment  of  the  metres  natural  to  the  genius  of 
the  language.  In  '  The  Coming  of  Love  '  the  poet  has 
invented  a  new  poetic   form.     Its  object  is  to  combine 


412  'The  Coming  of  Love' 

the  advantages  and  to  avoid  the  disadvantages  of  lyrical 
narrative,  of  poetic  drama,  of  the  prose  novel,  and  of 
the  prose  play.  In  Tennyson's  '  Maud '  and  in  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton's  other  lyrical  drama,  "  Christmas  at  the 
*  Mermaid,' "  the  special  functions  of  all  the  above  men- 
tioned forms  are  knit  together  in  a  new  form.  The 
story  is  told  by  brief  pictures.  In  *The  Coming  of 
Love'  this  method  reaches  its  perfection.  Lyrics,  songs, 
elegaic  quatrains,  and  sonnets,  are  used  according  to  an 
inner  law  of  the  poet's  mind.  The  exaltation  of  these 
moments  is  intensified  by  the  business  parts  of  the 
narrative  being  summarized  in  bare  prose.  The  inter- 
play of  thought,  mood,  and  passion  is  revealed  wholly 
by  swift  lyrical  visions.  In  Dante's  '  Vita  Nuova  '  a 
method  something  like  this  is  adopted,  but  there  the 
links  are  in  a  kind  of  poetical  prose  akin  to  the  verse, 
and  as  Dante's  poems  are  all  sonnets,  there  is  no  har- 
monic scheme  of  metrical  music  like  that  in  '  The 
Coming  of  Love.'  Here  the  very  '  rhyme-colour  ' 
and  the  subtle  variety  of  vowel  sounds  from  beginning 
to  end  are  evidently  part  of  the  metrical  composition. 
Wagner's  music  is  the  only  modern  art-form  which  is 
comparable  with  the  metrical  architecture  of  '  The 
Coming  of  Love,'  and  "  Christmas  at  the  '  Mermaid.' "  No 
one  can  fully  understand  the  rhythmic  triumph  of  these 
great  poems  who  has  not  studied  it  by  the  light  of  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton's  theory  of  elaborate  rhythmic  effects  in 
music  formulated  in  his  treatise  on  Poetry  in  the  *  En- 
cyclopaedia Britannica  ' — a  theory  which  shows  that 
metrical  and  rhythmical  art,  as  compared  with  the  art 
of  music,  is  still  developing.  Both  these  lyrical  dramas 
ought  to  be  carefully  studied  by  all  students  of  English 
metres. 
The  novelty  of  these  forms  is  not  a  fortuitous  eccen- 


The   Metrical  Scheme  413 

tricity,  but  an  extremely  valuable  experiment  in  a 
new  kind  of  dramatic  poetry.  It  is  remarkable  that 
in  this  new  and  difficult  form  the  poet  has  achieved 
in  Rhona  Boswell  a  feat  of  characterization  quite 
without  parallel  under  such  conditions.  Rhona  is  so 
vivid  that  it  is  hardly  fair  to  hang  her  portrait  on  the 
same  wall  as  those  of  the  ordinary  heroines  of  poetry. 
But  if,  for  the  sake  of  comparison,  Rhona  be  set  be- 
side Tennyson's  Maud,  the  difference  is  startling.  Maud 
does  not  tingle  with  personality.  She  is  a  type,  an  ab- 
straction, a  common  denominator  of  '  creamy  English 
girls.'  Rhona,  on  the  other  hand,  is  nervously  alive 
with  personality.  One  makes  pictures  of  her  in  one's 
brain — pictures  that  never  become  blurred,  pictures 
that  do  not  run  into  other  pictures  of  other  poetic 
heroines.  How  much  of  this  is  due  to  the  poetic  form  ? 
Could  Rhona  have  lived  so  intensely  in  a  novel  or  a 
play  ?  I  do  not  think  so.  At  any  rate,  she  lives  with 
incomparable  vitality  in  this  lyrical  drama-novel,  and 
therefore  the  poetic  vehicle  in  which  she  rushes  upon  our 
vision  is  well  worth  the  study  of  critics  and  craftsmen. 
Mr.  Kernahan  has  called  attention  to  the  baldness  of 
the  enlinking  prose  narrative.  Perhaps  this  defect  could 
be  remedied  by  using  a  more  poetic  and  more  romantic 
prose  like  that  of  the  opening  of  '  Aylwin,'  which  would 
lead  the  imagination  insensibly  from  one  situation  or 
mood  to  another. 

In  connection  with  the  opening  sonnets  of  '  The 
Coming  of  Love,'  a  very  interesting  point  of  criticism 
presents  itself.  These  sonnets,  in  which  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  tells  the  story  of  the  girl  who  lived  in  the  Casket 
lighthouse,  appeared  in  the  '  Athenaeum '  a  week 
after  Mr.  Swinburne  and  he  returned  from  a  visit  to  the 
Channel  Islands.     They  record  a  real  incident.     Some 


414  *  The  Coming  of  Love  ' 

time  afterwards  Mr.  Swinburne  published  in  the  *  Eng- 
lish Illustrated  Magazine  '  his  version  of  the  story,  a 
splendid  specimen  of  his  sonorous  rhythms. 

Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  version  of  the  story  may  interest 
the  reader  : — 


LOVE  BRINGS  WARNING  OF  NATURA  MALIGNA 

(the  poet  sailing  with  a  friend  past  the  casket  lighthouse) 

Amid  the  Channel's  wiles  and  deep  decoys, 

Where  yonder  Beacons  watch  the  siren-sea, 

A  girl  was  reared  who  knew  nor  flower  nor  tree 

Nor  breath  of  grass  at  dawn,  yet  had  high  joys  : 

The  moving  lawns  whose  verdure  never  cloys 

Were  hers.     At  last  she  sailed  to  Alderney, 

But  there  she  pined.     '  The  bustling  world,'  said  she, 

'  Is  all  too  full  of  trouble,  full  of  noise.' 

The  storm-child,  fainting  for  her  home,  the  storm. 

Had  winds  for  sponsor — one  proud  rock  for  nurse, 

Whose  granite  arms,  through  countless  years,  disperse 

All  billowy  squadrons  tide  and  wind  can  form  : 

The  cold  bright  sea  was  hers  for  universe 

Till  o'er  the  waves  Love  flew  and  fanned  them  warm. 

But  love  brings  Fear  with  eyes  of  augury  : — 

Her  lover's  boat  was  out ;    licr  cars  were  dinned 

With  sea-sobs  warning  of  the  awakened  wind 

That  shook  the  troubled  sun's  red  canopy. 

Even  while  she  prayed  the  storm's  high  revelry 

Woke  petrel,  gull — all  revellers  winged  and  finned — 

And  clutched  a  sail  brown-patched  and  weather-thinned, 

And  then  a  swimmer  fought  a  white,  wild  sea. 

'  My  songs  are  louder,  child,  than  prayers  of  thine,' 

The  Mother  sang.     '  Thy  sea-boy  waged  no  strife 

With  Hatred's  poison,  gangrened  Envy's  knife — 

With  me  he  strove,  in  deadly  sport  divine. 

Who  lend  to  men,  to  gods,  an  hour  of  life, 

Then  give  them  sleep  within  these  arms  of  mine  !  ' 


Two  Poets  and  the  Lighthouse  Girl      415 

Two  poems  more  absolutely  unlike  could  not  be 
found  in  our  literature  than  these  poems  on  the  same 
subject  by  two  intimate  friends.  It  seems  impossible 
that  the  two  writers  could  ever  have  read  each  other's 
work  or  ever  have  known  each  other  well.  The  point 
which  I  wish  to  emphasize  is  that  two  poets  or  two 
literary  men  may  be  more  intimate  than  brothers,  they 
may  live  with  each  other  constantly,  they  may  meet 
each  other  every  day,  at  luncheon,  at  dinner,  they  may 
spend  a  large  portion  of  the  evening  in  each  other's 
society  ;  and  yet  when  they  sit  down  at  their  desks  they 
may  be  as  far  asunder  as  the  poles.  From  this  we 
may  perhaps  infer  that  among  the  many  imaginable 
divisions  of  writers  there  is  this  one  :  there  are  men  who 
can  collaborate  and  men  who  cannot. 

Many  well-known  writers  have  expressed  their  ad- 
miration of  this  poem.  I  may  mention  that  the  other 
day  I  came  across  a  little  book  called  '  Authors  that 
have  Influenced  me,'  and  found  that  Mr.  Rider  Haggard 
instanced  the  opening  section  of  '  The  Coming  of  Love,' 

*  Mother  Carey's  Chicken,'  as  being  the  piece  of 
writing  that  had  influenced  him  more  than  all  others. 
I  think  this  is  a  compliment,  for  the  originality  of 
invention  displayed  in   '  King    Solomon's    Mines  '  and 

*  She '  sets  Rider  Haggard  apart  among  the  story-tellers 
of  our  time,  and  I  agree  with  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  in 
thinking  that  the  invention  of  a  story  that  is  new  and 
also  good  is  a  rare  achievement. 

I  can  find  no  space  to  give  as  much  attention  as  I 
should  like  to  give  to  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  miscellaneous 
sonnets.  Some  of  them  have  had  a  great  vogue  :  for 
instance,  '  John  the  Pilgrim.'  Like  all  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  sonnets,  it  lends  itself  to  illustration,  and 
Mr.  Arthur  Hacker,  A.R.A.,  as  will  be  seen,  has  done 


41 6  'The  Coming  of  Love  ' 

full  justice  to  the  imaginative  strength  of  the  subject. 
It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  there  is  a  simple  gran- 
deur in  this  design  which  Mr.  Hacker  has  seldom 
reached  elsewhere,  the  sinister  power  of  Natura  Benigna 
being  symbolized  by  the  desert  waste  and  nature's 
mockery  by  the  mirage  : — 

Beneath  the  sand-storm  John  the  Pilgrim  prays ; 

But  when  he  rises,  lo  !    an  Eden  smiles, 

Green  leafy  slopes,  meadows  of  chamomiles, 
Claspt  in  a  silvery  river's  wdnding  maze  : 
'  Water,  water  !     Blessed  be  God  ! '  he  says, 

And  totters  gasping  toward  those  happy  isles. 

Then  all  is  fled !     Over  the  sandy  piles 
The  bald-eyed  vultures  come  and  stand  at  gaze. 

'  God  heard  me  not,'  says  he,  '  blessed  be  God  ! ' 
And  dies.     But  as  he  nears  the  pearly  strand, 
Heav'n's  outer  coast  where  waiting  angels  stand, 

He  looks  below  :    '  Farewell,  thou  hooded  clod. 
Brown  corpse  the  vultures  tear  on  bloody  sand  : 

God  heard  my  prayer  for  life — blessed  be  God  !  ' 

This  sonnet  is  a  miracle  of  verbal  parsimony  :  it  has 
been  called  an  epic  in  fourteen  lines,  yet  its  brevity  does 
not  make  it  obscure,  or  gnarled,  or  affected ;  and  the 
motive  adumbrates  the  whole  history  of  religious  faith 
from  Job  to  Jesus  Christ,  from  Moses  to  Mahomet. 
The  rhymes  in  this  sonnet  illustrate  my  own  theory 
as  to  the  rhymer's  luck,  good  and  ill.  To  have 
written  this  little  epic  upon  four  rhymes  would  not 
have  been  possible,  even  for  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  had 
it  not  been  for  the  luck  of  '  chamomiles '  and  '  isles,' 

*  chamomiles  '  giving    the    picture  of  the  flowers,    and 

*  isles '  giving  the  false  vision  of  the  mirage.  The  same 
thing  is  notable  in  the  case  of  another  amazing  tour 
de  force,  '  The  Bedouin  Child '  (sec  p.  448),  where  the 


Kinship  with  Coleridge  417 

same  verbal  parsimony  is  exemplified.  Without  the  for- 
tunate rhyme-words  *  pashas,' '  camel-maws,'  and  *  claws ' 
in  the  octave,  the  picture  could  not  have  been  given  in 
less  than  a  dozen  lines. 

The  kinship  between  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  poetry  and 
that  of  Coleridge  has  been  frequently  discussed.  It 
has  the  same  romantic  glamour  and  often  the  same 
music,  as  far  as  the  music  of  decasyllabic  lines  can  call 
up  the  music  of  the  ravishing  octosyllabics  of  *  Christa- 
bel.'  This  at  least  I  know,  from  his  critical  remarks  on 
Coleridge, — he  owns  the  true  wizard  of  romance  as 
master.  I  do  not  think  that  any  one  of  his  sonnets 
affords  me  quite  the  unmixed  delight  which  I  find  in  the 
sonnet  on  Coleridge,  and  his  friend  George  Meredith  is 
here  in  accord  with  me,  for  he  wrote  to  the  author  as 
follows  :  '  The  sonnet  is  pure  amber  for  a  piece  of  des- 
criptive analogy  that  fits  the  poet  wonderfully,  and  one 
might  beat  about  through  volumes  of  essays  and  not  so 
paint  him.  There  is  Coleridge  !  But  whence  the  source 
of  your  story — if  anything  of  such  aptness  could  have 
been  other  than  dreamed  after  a  draught  of  Xanadu 
— I  cannot  tell.     It  is  new  to  me.' 

After  that  flash  of  critical  divination,  it  is  fitting 
to  present  the  reader  with  the  '  pure  amber  '  itself  : — 

I  see  thee  pine  like  her  in  golden  story 

Who,  in  her  prison,  woke  and  saw,  one  day, 
The  gates  thrown  open — saw  the  sunbeams  play, 

With  only  a  web  'tween  her  and  summer's  glory ; 

Who,  when  that  web — so  frail,  so  transitory. 
It  broke  before  her  breath — had  fallen  away, 
Saw  other  webs  and  others  rise  for  aye 

Which  kept  her  prisoned  till  her  hair  was  hoary. 

Those  songs  half-sung  that  yet  were  all  divine — 
That  woke  Romance,  the  queen,  to  reign  afresh — 
W,-D.  27 


41 S  '  The  Coming  of  Love  * 

Had  been  but  preludes  from  that  lyre  of  thine, 
Could  thy  rare  spirit's  wings  have  pierced  the  mesh 
Spun  by  the  wizard  who  compels  the  flesh, 

But  lets  the  poet  see  how  heav'n  can  shine. 

Here  again  the  verbal  parsimony  is  notable.  I 
defy  any  one  to  find  anything  like  it  except  in  Dante, 
the  great  master  of  verbal  parsimony.  There  are  only 
six  adjectives  in  the  whole  sonnet.  Every  word  is 
cunningly  chosen,  not  for  ornament,  but  solely  for 
clarity  of  meaning.  The  metrical  structure  is  subtly 
moulded  so  as  to  suspend  the  rising  imagery  until  the 
last  word  of  the  octave,  and  then  to  let  it  glide,  as  a 
sunbeam  glides  down  the  air,  to  its  lovely  dying  fall. 
Metrical  students  will  delight  in  the  double  rhymes  of 
the  octave,  which  play  so  great  a  part  in  the  suspensive 
music. 

I  have  frequently  thought  that  one  of  the  most  daring 
things,  as  well  as  one  of  the  wisest,  done  by  the  editor 
of  the  '  Athenaeum,'  was  that  of  printing  Rhona's 
letters,  bristling  with  Romany  words,  with  a  glossary  at 
the  foot  of  the  page,  and  printing  them  without  any  of 
the  context  of  the  poem  to  shed  light  upon  it  and  upon 
Rhona.  It  certainly  showed  immense  confidence  in  his 
contributor  to  do  that ;  and  yet  the  poems  were  a 
great  success.  The  best  thing  said  about  Rhona  has 
been  said  by  Mr.  George  Meredith  :  "  I  am  in  love 
with  Rhona,  not  the  only  one  in  that.  When  I  read 
her  love-letter  in  the  '  Athenaeum,'  I  had  the  regret 
that  the  dialect  might  cause  its  banishment  from 
literature.  Reading  the  whole  poem  through,  I  see  that 
it  is  as  good  as  salt  to  a  palate.  We  are  the  richer  for 
it,  and  that  is  a  rare  thing  to  say  of  any  poem  now 
printed."  And,  discussing  '  The  Coming  of  Love,' 
Meredith  wrote  :     '  I   will  not   speak   of  the  tours  de 


What  is  Originality   in   Poetry  ?         419 

force  except  to  express  a  bit  of  astonishment  at  the 
dexterity  which  can  perform  them  without  immo- 
lating the  tender  spirit  of  the  work.'  Indeed,  the 
technical  mastery  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  poetry  is  so 
consummate  that  it  is  concealed  from  the  reader.  There 
is  no  sense  of  difficulty  overcome,  no  parade  of  artifice. 
Yet  the  metrical  structure  of  the  very  poem  which 
seems  the  simplest  is  actually  the  subtlest.  *  Rhona's 
Love  Letter  '  is  written  in  an  extremely  complex  rhyme- 
pattern,  each  stanza  of  eight  lines  being  built  on  two 
rhymes,  like  the  octave  of  a  sonnet.  But  so  cunningly 
are  the  Romany  words  woven  into  a  na'lve,  unconscious 
charm  that  the  reader  forgets  the  rhyme-scheme  alto- 
gether, and  does  not  realize  that  this  spontaneous  sweet- 
ness and  bubbling  humour  are  produced  by  the  most 
elaborate  art. 

I  have  emphasized  the  originality  of  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  poetry.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  is 
the  most  original  poet  since  Coleridge,  not  merely  in 
verbal,  metrical,  and  rhythmical  idiosyncrasy,  but  in  the 
deeper  quality  of  imaginative  energy.  By  '  the  most 
original  poet '  I  do  not  mean  the  greatest  poet :  the 
student  of  poetry  will  know  at  once  what  I  mean.  Poe's 
*  Raven  '  is  more  *  original '  than  Shelley's  *  Epipsy- 
chidion,'  but  it  is  not  so  great.  In  my  article  on  Blake 
in  Chambers's  *  Cyclopaedia  of  English  Literature,'  I 
pointed  out  that  there  are  greater  poets  than  Blake 
(or  Donne)  but  none  more  original.  There  are  many 
poets  who  possess  that  ordinary  kind  of  imagination 
which  is  mainly  a  perpetual  matching  of  common  ideas 
with  common  metaphors.  But  few  poets  have  the 
rarer  kind  of  imagination  which  creates  not  only  the 
metaphor  but  also  the  idea,  and  then  fuses  both  into  one 
piece   of   beauty.      Now   Mr.   Watts-Dunton    has   this 


420  'The  Coming  of  Love* 

supreme  gift.  He  uses  the  symbol  to  suggest  ideas 
which  cannot  be  suggested  otherwise.  His  theory  of  the 
universe  is  optimistic,  but  his  optimism  is  interwoven 
with  sombre  threads.  He  sees  the  duahsm  of  Nature, 
and  he  shows  her  alternately  as  malignant  and  as 
benignant.  Indeed,  he  has  concentrated  his  spiritual 
cosmogony  into  the  two  great  sonnets,  *  Natura  Ma- 
ligna '  and  '  Natura  Benigna,'  which  I  have  already 
quoted. 

All  the  critics  were  delighted  with  the  humour  of 
Rhona  Boswell.  Upon  this  subject  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
makes  some  pregnant  remarks  in  the  introduction  to 
the  later  editions  of  the  poem  : — 

"  But  it  is  with  regard  to  the  humour  of  gypsy  women 
that  Gorgio  readers  seem  to  be  most  sceptical.  The 
humourous  endowment  of  most  races  is  found  to  be  more 
abundant  and  richer  in  quality  among  the  men  than 
among  the  women.  But  among  the  Romanies  the 
women  seem  to  have  taken  humour  with  the  rest  of  the 
higher  qualities. 

A  question  that  has  been  most  frequently  asked  me 
in  connection  with  my  two  gypsy  heroines  has  been  : 
Have  gypsy  girls  really  the  esprit  and  the  humourous 
charm  that  you  attribute  to  them  ?  My  answer  to  this 
question  shall  be  a  quotation  from  Mr.  Groome's  de- 
lightful book,  '  Gypsy  Folk-Tales.'  Speaking  of  the 
Romany  chi's  incomparable  piquancy,  he  says  : — 

*  I  have  known  a  gypsy  girl  dash  off  what  was  almost 
a  folk-tale  impromptu.  She  had  been  to  a  pic-nic  in  a 
four-in-hand  with  "  a  lot  o'  real  tip-top  gentry  "  ;  and 
'*  Reia,"  she  said  to  me  afterwards,  "  I'll  tell  you  the 
comicalest  thing  as  ever  was.  We'd  pulled  up  to  put  the 
brake  on,  and  there  was  a  puro  hotchiwitchi  (old  hedge- 


The   Humour   of  Rhona  421 

hog)  come  and  looked  at  us  through  the  hedge  ;  looked 
at  me  hard.  I  could  see  he'd  his  eye  upon  me.  And 
home  he'd  go,  that  old  hedgehog,  to  his  wife,  and  *  Missus,* 
he'd  say,  *  what  d'ye  think  ?  I  seen  a  little  gypsy  gal 
just  now  in  a  coach  and  four  horses '  ;  and  '  Dabla,'  she'd 
say, '  sawkumni  'as  varde  kenaw '"  ['  Bless  us  !  every  one 
now  keeps  a  carriage  '].' 

Now,  without  saying  that  this  impromptu  folk- 
lorist  was  Rhona'  Boswell,  I  will  at  least  aver,  without 
fear  of  contradiction  from  Mr.  Groome,  that  it  might 
well  have  been  she.  Although  there  is  as  great  a  differ- 
ence between  one  Romany  chi  and  another  as  between 
one  English  girl  and  another,  there  is  a  strange  and  fas- 
cinating kinship  between  the  humour  of  all  gypsy  girls. 
No  three  girls  could  possibly  be  more  unlike  than 
Sinfi  Lovell,  Rhona  Boswell,  and  the  girl  of  whom 
Mr.  Groome  gives  his  anecdote  ;  and  yet  there  is  a 
similarity  between  the  fanciful  humour  of  them  all. 
The  humour  of  Rhona  Boswell  must  speak  for  itself 
in  these  pages — where,  however,  the  passionate  and 
tragic  side  of  her  character  and  her  story  dominates 
everything." 


Chapter  XXVII 

"CHRISTMAS    AT   THE   *  MERMAID  '  " 

SECOND  in  importance  to  *  The  Coming  of  Love  ' 
among  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  poems  is  the  poem  I 
have  already  mentioned  —  the  poem  which  Mr.  Swin- 
burne has  described  as  '  a  great  lyrical  epic  ' — "  Christ- 
mas at  the  '  Mermaid.'  "  The  originality  of  this  won- 
derful poem  is  quite  as  striking  as  that  of  '  The  Coming 
of  Love.'  No  other  writer  would  have  dreamed  of  de- 
picting the  doomed  Armada  as  being  led  to  destruction 
by  a  golden  skeleton  in  the  form  of  one  of  the  burnt 
Incas,  called  up  by  '  the  righteous  sea,'  and  squatting 
grimly  at  the  prow  of  Medina's  flag-ship.  Here  we  get 
*  The  Renascence  of  Wonder  '  indeed.  Some  Aylwinians 
put  it  at  the  head  of  all  his  writings.  The  exploit  of 
David  Gwynn  is  accepted  by  Motley  and  others  as 
historic,  but  it  needed  the  co-operation  of  the  Golden 
Skeleton  to  lift  his  narrative  into  the  highest  heaven  of 
poetry.  Extremely  unlike  '  The  Coming  of  Love  '  as  it 
is  in  construction,  it  is  built  on  the  same  metrical  scheme ; 
and  it  illustrates  equally  well  with  '  The  Coming  of  Love  ' 
the  remarks  I  have  made  upon  a  desideratum  in  poetic 
art — that  is  to  say,  it  is  cast  in  a  form  which  gives  as  much 
scope  to  the  dramatic  instinct  at  work  as  is  given  by  a 
play,  and  yet  it  is  a  form  free  from  the  restrictions  by 
which  a  play  must  necessarily  be  cramped.  The  poem 
was  written,  or  mainly  written,  during  one  of  those  visits 

423 


Ben  Jonson   Drinks  to  Shakespeare      423 

which,  as  I  have  already  said,  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  used  to 
pay  to  Stratford-on-Avon.  The  scene  is  laid,  however, 
in  London,  at  that  famous  '  Mermaid '  tavern  which 
haunts  the  dreams  of  all  English  poets  : — 

"  With  the  exception  of  Shakespeare,  who  has  quitted 
London  for  good,  in  order  to  reside  at  New  Place,  Strat- 
ford-on-Avon, which  he  has  lately  rebuilt,  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  *  Mermaid  '  Club  are  assembled  at  the  *  Mer- 
maid '  Tavern.  At  the  head  of  the  table  sits  Ben  Jon- 
son dealing  out  wassail  from  a  large  bowl.  At  the  other 
end  sits  Raleigh,  and  at  Raleigh's  right  hand,  the  guest 
he  had  brought  with  him,  a  stranger,  David  Gwynn,  the 
Welsh  seaman,  now  an  elderly  man,  whose  story  of  his 
exploits  as  a  galley-slave  in  crippling  the  Armada  before 
it  reached  the  Channel  had,  years  before,  whether  true 
or  false,  given  him  in  the  low  countries  a  great  reputation, 
the  echo  of  which  had  reached  England.  Raleigh's  de- 
sire was  to  excite  the  public  enthusiasm  for  continuing 
the  struggle  with  Spain  on  the  sea,  and  generally  to  re- 
vive the  fine  Elizabethan  temper,  which  had  already 
become  almost  a  thing  of  the  past,  save,  perhaps,  among 
such  choice  spirits  as  those  associated  with  the  '  Mer- 
maid '  club." 

It  opens  with  a  chorus  : — 

Christmas  knows  a  merry,  merry  place, 
Where  he  goes  with  fondest  face, 

Brightest  eye,  brightest  hair  : 
Tell  the  Mermaid  where  is  that  one  place : 
Where  ? 

Then  Ben  Jonson  rises,  fills  the  cup  with  wassail  and 
drinks  to  Shakespeare,  and  thus  comments  upon  his 
absence  : — 


424        "  Christmas   at   the   '  Mermaid  '  " 

That  he,  the  star  of  revel,  bright-eyed  Will, 
With  life  at  golden  summit,  fled  the  town 
And  took  from  Thames  that  light  to  dwindle  down 

O'er  Stratford  farms,  doth  make  me  marvel  still. 


Then  he  calls  upon  Shakespeare's  most  intimate  friend 
— the  mysterious  Mr.  W.  H.  of  the  sonnets — to  give 
them  reminiscences  of  Shakespeare  with  a  special  refer- 
ence to  the  memorable  evening  when  he  arrived  at  Strat- 
ford on  quitting  London  for  good  and  all. 

To  the  sixth  edition  of  the  poem  Mr.  Watts-Dunton 
prefixed  the  following  remarks,  and  I  give  them  here 
because  they  throw  light  upon  his  view  of  Shakespeare's 
friend  : — 

'  "  Since  the  appearance  of  this  volume,  there  has  been 
a  great  deal  of  acute  and  learned  discussion  as  to  the 
identity  of  that  mysterious  *  friend  '  of  Shakespeare,  to 
whom  so  many  of  the  sonnets  are  addressed.  But  every- 
thing that  has  been  said  upon  the  subject  seems  to  fortify 
me  in  the  opinion  that  '  no  critic  has  been  able  to  iden- 
tify '  that  friend.  Southampton  seems  at  first  to  fit 
into  the  sacred  place  ;  so  does  Pembroke  at  first.  But, 
after  a  while,  true  and  unbiassed  criticism  rejects  them 
both.  I  therefore  feel  more  than  ever  justified  in  '  ima- 
gining the  friend  for  myself.'  And  this,  at  least,  I  know, 
that  to  have  been  the  friend  of  Shakespeare,  a  man  must 
needs  have  been  a  lover  of  nature  ; — he  must  have  been 
a  lover  of  England,  too.  And  upon  these  two  points,  and 
upon  another — the  movement  of  a  soul  dominated  by 
friendship  as  a  passion — I  have  tried  to  show  Shake- 
speare's probable  influence  upon  his  '  friend  of  friends.' 
It  would  have  been  a  mistake,  however,  to  cast  the  sonnets 
in  the  same  metrical  mould  as  Shakespeare's," 


Shakespeare's   Return   to  Stratford        425 

Shakspeare's   friend  thus  records    what    Shakespeare 
had  told  him  about  his  return  to  Stratford  : — 

As  down  the  bank  he  strolled  through  evening  dew, 
Pictures  (he  told  me)  of  remembered  eves 
Mixt  with  that  dream  the  Avon  ever  weaves, 
And  all  his  happy  childhood  came  to  view ; 
He  saw  a  child  watching  the  birds  that  flew 
Above  a  willow,  through  whose  musky  leaves 
A  green  musk-beetle  shone  with  mail  and  greaves 
That  shifted  in  the  light  to  bronze  and  blue. 
These  dreams,  said  he,  were  born  of  fragrance  falling 
From  trees  he  loved,  the  scent  of  musk  recalling, 
With  power  beyond  all  power  of  things  beholden 
Or  things  reheard,  those  days  when  elves  of  dusk 
Came,  veiled  the  wings  of  evening  feathered  golden, 
And  closed  him  in  from  all  but  vdllow  musk. 

And  then  a  child  beneath  a  silver  sallow — 

A  child  who  loved  the  swans,  the  moorhen's  '  cheep ' — 

Angled  for  bream  where  river  holes  were  deep — 

For  gudgeon  where  the  water  glittered  shallow, 

Or  ate  the  '  fairy  cheeses  '  of  the  mallow. 

And  wild  fruits  gathered  where  the  wavelets  creep 

Round  that  loved  church  whose  shadow  seems  to  sleep 

In  love  upon  the  stream  and  bless  and  haUow ; 

And  then  a  child  to  whom  the  water-fairies 

Sent  fish  to  '  bite '  from  Avon's  holes  and  shelves, 

A  child  to  whom,  from  richest  honey-dairies, 

The  flower-sprites  sent  the  bees  and  '  sunshine  elves  ' ; 

Then,  in  the  shifting  vision's  sweet  vagaries. 

He  saw  two  lovers  walking  by  themselves — 

Walking  beneath  the  trees,  where  drops  of  rain 
Wove  crowns  of  sunlit  opal  to  decoy 
Young  love  from  home  ;    and  one,  the  happy  boy, 
Knew  all  the  thoughts  of  birds  in  every  strain — 
Knew  why  the  cushat  breaks  his  fond  refrain 
By  sudden  silence,  '  lest  his  plaint  should  cloy  ' — 
Knew  when  the  skylark's  changing  note  of  joy 


426        "  Christmas  at  the  '  Mermaid  '  " 

Saith,  '  Now  will  I  return  to  earth  again ' — 

Knew  every  warning  of  the  blackbird's  shriek, 

And  every  promise  of  his  joyful  song — 

Knew  what  the  magpie's  chuckle  fain  would  speak ; 

And,  when  a  silent  cuckoo  flew  along. 

Bearing  an  egg  in  her  felonious  beak, 

Knew  every  nest  threatened  with  grievous  wrong. 

He  heard  her  say,  '  The  birds  attest  our  troth  !  ' 

Hark  to  the  mavis,  Will,  in  yonder  may 

Fringing  the  sward,  where  many  a  hawthorn  spray 

Round  summer's  royal  field  of  golden  cloth 

Shines  o'er  the  buttercups  like  snowy  froth, 

And  that  sweet  skylark  on  his  azure  way. 

And  that  wise  cuckoo,  hark  to  what  they  say : 

'  We  birds  of  Avon  heard  and  bless  you  both.' 

And,  Will,  the  sunrise,  flushing  with  its  glory. 

River  and  church,  grows  rosier  with  our  story ! 

This  breeze  of  morn,  sweetheart,  which  moves  caressing, 

Hath  told  the  flowers ;   they  wake  to  lovelier  growth  ! 

They  breathe — o'er  mead  and  stream  they  breathe — the  blessing. 

'  We  flowers  of  Avon  heard  and  bless  you  both  ! ' 

When  Mr.  *  W.  H.'  sits  down,  the  friend  and  brother 
of  another  great  poet,  Christopher  Marlowe,  who  had 
been  sitting  moody  and  silent,  oppressed  by  thoughts 
of  the  dead  man,  many  of  whose  unfriends  were  at  the 
gathering,  recites  these  lines  '  On  Seeing  Kit  Marlowe 
Slain  at  Deptford  '  : — 

'Tis  Marlowe  falls !    That  last  lunge  rent  asunder 

Our  lyre  of  spirit  and  flesh.  Kit  Marlowe's  life. 

Whose  chords  seemed  strung  by  earth  and  heaven  at  strife. 

Yet  ever  strung  to  beauty  above  or  under  ! 

Heav'n  kens  of  Man,  but  oh  !    the  stars  can  blunder. 

If  Fate's  hand  guided  yonder  villain's  knife 

Through  that  rare  brain,  so  teeming,  daring,  rife 

With  dower  of  poets — song  and  love  and  wonder. 

Or  was  it  Chance  ?     Shakspeare,  who  art  supreme 

O'er  man  and  men,  yet  sharest  Marlowe's  sight 


The   Death   of  Kit   Marlowe  427 

To  pierce  the  clouds  that  hide  the  inhuman  height 
Where  man  and  men  and  gods  and  all  that  seem 
Are  Nature's  mutterings  in  her  changeful  dream — 
Come,  spell  the  runes  these  bloody  rivulets  write  ! 

After  they  have  all  drunk  in  silence  to  the  memory  of 
Marlowe,  Marlowe's  friend  speaks  : — 

Where'er  thou  art,  *  dead  Shepherd,'  look  on  me ; 

The  boy  who  loved  thee  loves  more  dearly  now, 

He  sees  thine  eyes  in  yonder  holly-bough ; 
Oh,  Kit,  my  Kit,  the  Mermaid  drinks  to  thee  ! 

Then  Raleigh  rises,  and  the  great  business  of  the  even- 
ing begins  with  the  following  splendid  chorus  : — 

Raleigh 

(Turning  to  David  Gwynn) 

Wherever  billows  foam  ■■; 

The  Briton  fights  at  home  : 
His  hearth  is  built  of  water — 

Chorus 
Water  blue  and  green ; 

Raleigh 
There's  flever  a  wave  of  ocean 
The  wind  can  set  in  motion 
That  shall  not  own  our  England — 

Chorus 
Own  our  England  queen. i 

Raleigh 
The  guest  I  bring  to-night 
Had  many  a  goodly  fight 
On  seas  the  Don  hath  found — 

^  *  England  is  a   country  that  can  never  be  conquered  while    the 
Sovereign  thereof  has  the  command  of  the  sea,.' — Raleigh, 


428         "Christmas   at   the   *  Mermaid  '  " 

Chorus 
Hath  found  for  English  sails ; 

Raleigh 
And  once  he  dealt  a  blow 
Against  the  Don  to  show 
What  mighty  hearts  can  move — 

Chorus 
Can  move  in  leafy  Wales. 

Raleigh 
Stand  up,  bold  Master  Gwynn, 
Who  hast  a  heart  akin 
To  England's  own  brave  hearts — 

Chorus 
Brave  hearts  where'er  they  beat ; 

Raleigh 

Stand  up,  brave  Welshman,  thou, 
And  tell  the  Mermaid  how 
A  galley-slave  struck  hard — 

Chorus 
Struck  hard  the  Spanish  fleet. 

Christmas  knows  a  merry,  merry  place, 
Where  he  goes  with  fondest  face, 
Brightest  eye,  brightest  hair  : 
Tell  the  Mermaid  where  is  that  one  place  : 
Where  ? 

Upon  being  thus  called  forth  the  old  sea-dog  rises,  and 
tells  a  wonderful  story  indeed,  the  '  story  of  how  he  and 
the  Golden  Skeleton  crippled  the  Great  Armada  sailing 
out '  : — 

*  A  galley  lie  '  they  called  my  tale  ;    but  he 

Whose  talk  is  with  the  deep  kens  mighty  tales : 
The  man,  I  say,  who  helped  to  keep  you  free 


Galley-Slaves   Cripple  the  Armada      429 

Stands  here,  a  truthful  son  of  truthful  Wales. 
Slandered  by  England  as  a  loose-lipped  liar, 

Banished  from  Ireland,  branded  rogue  and  thief. 
Here  stands  that  Gwynn  whose  life  of  torments  dire 
Heaven  sealed  for  England,  sealed  in  blood  and  fire — 

Stands  asking  here  Truth's  one  reward,  belief ! 

And  Spain  shall  tell,  with  pallid  lips  of  dread, 

This  tale  of  mine — shall  tell,  in  future  days. 
How  Gwynn,  the  galley-slave,  once  fought  and  bled 

For  England  when  she  moved  in  perilous  ways ; 
But  say,  ye  gentlemen  of  England,  sprung 

From  loins  of  men  whose  ghosts  have  still  the  sea — ■ 
Doth  England — she  who  loves  the  loudest  tongue — 
Remember  mariners  whose  deeds  are  sung 

By  waves  where  flowed  their  blood  to  keep  her  free  } 

I  see — I  see  ev'n  now — those  ships  of  Spain 

Gathered  in  Tagus'  mouth  to  make  the  spring ; 
I  feel  the  cursed  oar,  I  toil  again. 

And  trumpets  blare,  and  priests  and  choir-boys  sing ; 
And  morning  strikes  with  many  a  crimson  shaft, 

Through  ruddy  haze,  four  galleys  rowing  out — 
Four  galleys  built  to  pierce  the  English  craft. 
Each  swivel-gunned  for  raking  fore  and  aft. 

Snouted  like  sword-fish,  but  with  iron  snout. 

And  one  we  call  the  '  Princess,'  one  the  '  Royal,' 

'  Diana  '  one  ;   but  'tis  the  fell  '  Basana  ' 
Where  I  am  toiHng,  Gwynn,  the  true,  the  loyal, 

Thinking  of  mighty  Drake  and  Gloriana ; 
For  by  their  help  Hope  whispers  me  that  I — 

Whom  ten  hours'  daily  travail  at  a  stretch 
Has  taught  how  sweet  a  thing  it  is  to  die — 
May  strike  once  more  where  flags  of  England  fly, 

Strike  for  myself  and  many  a  haggard  wretch. 

True  sorrow  knows  a  tale  it  may  not  tell : 

Again  I  feel  the  lash  that  tears  my  back ; 
Again  I  hear  mine  own  blaspheming  yell. 

Answered  by  boatswain's  laugh  and  scourge's  crack ; 
Again  I  feel  the  pang  when  trying  to  choke 


430        "  Christmas  at  the  *  Mermaid 


i )) 


Rather  than  drink  the  wine,  or  chew  the  bread 
Wherewith,  when  rest  for  meals  would  break  the  stroke, 
They  cram  our  mouths  while  still  we  sit  at  yoke  ; 

Again  is  Life,  not  Death,  the  shape  of  dread. 

By  Finisterre  there  comes  a  sudden  gale. 

And  mighty  waves  assault  our  trembling  galley 
With  blows  that  strike  her  waist  as  strikes  a  flail, 

And  soldiers  cry,  '  What  saint  shall  bid  her  rally  ?  ' 
Some  slaves  refuse  to  row,  and  some  implore 

The  Dons  to  free  them  from  the  metal  tether 
By  which  their  limbs  are  locked  upon  the  oar ; 
Some  shout,  in  answer  to  the  billows'  roar, 

'  The  Dons  and  we  will  drink  brine-wine  together.' 

'  Bring  up  the  slave,'  I  hear  the  captain  cry, 

'  Who  sank  the  golden  galleon  "  El  Dorado," 
The  dog  can  steer,' 

*  Here  sits  the  dog,'  quoth  I, 

'  Who  sank  the  ship  of  Commodore  Medrado  ! ' 
With  hell-lit  eyes,  blistered  by  spray  and  rain, 

Standing  upon  the  bridge,  saith  he  to  me  : 
*  Hearken,  thou  pirate — bold  Medrado's  bane  ! — 
Freedom  and  gold  are  thine,  and  thanks  of  Spain, 

If  thou  canst  take  the  galley  through  this  sea.' 

'  Ay  !    ay  !  '  quoth  I.     The  fools  unlock  me  straight ! 

And  then  'tis  I  give  orders  to  the  Don, 
Laughing  within  to  hear  the  laugh  of  Fate, 

Whose  winning  game  I  know  hath  just  begun. 
I  mount  the  bridge  when  dies  the  last  red  streak 

Of  evening,  and  the  moon  seems  fain  for  night. 
Oh  then  I  see  beneath  the  galley's  beak 
A  glow  like  Spanish  auto's  ruddy  reek — 

Oh  then  these  eyes  behold  a  wondrous  sight ! 

A  skeleton,  but  yet  with  living  eyes — 

A  skeleton,  but  yet  with  bones  like  gold — 

Squats  on  the  galley-beak,  in  wondrous  wise, 
And  round  his  brow,  of  high  imperial  mould, 

A  burning  circle  seems  to  shake  and  shine, 


The  Golden  Skeleton       ^  431 

Bright,  fiery  bright,  with  many  a  living  gem, 
Tlirowing  a  radiance  o'er  the  foam-lit  brine  : 
'Tis  God's  Revenge,'  methinks.     '  Heaven  sends  for  sign 
That  bony  shape — that  Inca's  diadem.' 

At  first  the  sign  is  only  seen  of  me. 

But  well  I  know  that  God's  Revenge  hath  come 
To  strike  the  Armada,  set  old  ocean  free, 

And  cleanse  from  stain  of  Spain  the  beauteous  foam. 
Quoth  I,  '  How  fierce  soever  be  the  levin 

Spain's  hand  can  hurl — made  mightier  still  for  wrong 
By  that  great  Scarlet  One  whose  hills  are  seven — 
Yea,  howsoever  Hell  may  scoff  at  Heaven — 

Stronger  than  Hell  is  God,  though  Hell  is  strong.' 

'  The  dog  can  steer,'  I  laugh  ;    '  yea,  Drake's  men  know 

How  sea-dogs  hold  a  ship  to  Biscay  waves.' 
Ah  !   when  I  bid  the  soldiers  go  below. 

Some  'neath  the  hatches,  some  beside  the  slaves, 
And  bid  them  stack  their  muskets  all  in  piles 

Beside  the  foremast,  covered  by  a  sail, 
The  captives  guess  my  plan — I  see  their  smiles 
As  down  the  waist  the  cozened  troop  defiles, 

Staggering  and  stumbling  landsmen,  faint  and  pale. 

I  say,  they  guess  my  plan — to  send  beneath 

The  soldiers  to  the  benches  where  the  slaves 
Sit,  armed  with  eager  nails  and  eager  teeth — 

Hate's  nails  and  teeth  more  keen  than  Spanish  glaives, 
Then  wait  until  the  tempest's  waxing  might 

Shall  reach  its  fiercest,  mingling  sea  and  sky. 
Then  seize  the  key,  unlock  the  slaves,  and  smite 
The  sea-sick  soldiers  in  their  helpless  plight, 

Then  bid  the  Spaniards  pull  at  oar  or  die. 

Past  Ferrol  Bay  each  galley  'gins  to  stoop, 
Shuddering  before  the  Biscay  demon's  breath. 

Down  goes  a  prow — down  goes  a  gaudy  poop  : 
'  The  Don's  "  Diana  "  bears  the  Don  to  death,' 

Quoth  I,  '  and  see  the  "  Princess  "  plunge  and  wallow 
Down  purple  trough,  o'er  snowy  crest  of  foam  : 


432        "Christmas   at   the   *  Mermaid"* 

See !   see !   the  "  Royal,"  how  she  tries  to  follow 
By  many  a  glimmering  crest  and  shimmering  hollow, 
Where  gvJl  and  petrel  scarcely  dare  to  roam.' 

Now,  three  queen-galleys  pass  Cape  Finistcrre ; 

The  Armada,  dreaming  but  of  ocean-storms. 
Thinks  not  of  mutineers  with  shoulders  bare, 

Chained,  bloody-wealed  and  pale,  on  galley-forms. 
Each  rower  murmuring  o'er  my  whispered  plan. 

Deep-burnt  within  his  brain  in  words  of  fire, 

*  Rise,  every  man,  to  tear  to  death  his  man — 
Yea,  tear  as  only  galley-captives  can, 

When  God's  Revenge  sings  loud  to  ocean's  lyre.' 

Taller  the  spectre  grows  'mid  ocean's  din  ; 

The  captain  sees  the  Skeleton  and  pales  : 
I  give  the  sign  :   the  slaves  cry,  '  Ho  for  Gwynn ! ' 

'  Teach  them,'  quoth  I,  '  the  way  we  grip  in  Wales.' 
And,  leaping  down  where  hateful  boatswains  shake, 

I  win  the  key — ^let  loose  a  storm  of  slaves : 

*  When  captives  hold  the  whip,  let  drivers  quake,' 
They  cry ;    '  sit  down,  ye  Dons,  and  row  for  Drake, 

Or  drink  to  England's  Queen  in  foaming  waves.' 

We  leap  adown  the  hatches ;   in  the  dark 

We  stab  the  Dons  at  random,  till  I  see 
A  spark  that  trembles  like  a  tinder-spark. 

Waxing  and  brightening,  till  it  seems  to  be 
A  fleshless  skull,  with  eyes  of  joyful  fire  : 

Then,  lo  :    a  bony  shape  vnth  lifted  hands — 
A  bony  mouth  that  chants  an  anthem  dire, 
O'ertopping  groans,  o'ertopping  Ocean's  quire — 

A  skeleton  with  Inca's  diadem  stands ! 

It  sings  the  song  I  heard  an  Indian  sing, 
Chained  by  the  ruthless  Dons  to  burn  at  stake, 

When  priests  of  Tophet  chanted  in  a  ring, 

Sniffing  man's  flesh  at  roast  for  Christ  His  sake. 

The  Spaniards  hear  :    they  see  :    they  fight  no  more  ; 
They  cross  their  foreheads,  but  they  dare  not  speak. 

Anon  the  spectre,  when  the  strife  is  o'er, 


The  Golden  Skeleton  433 


Melts  from  the  dark,  then  glimmers  as  before, 
Burning  upon  the  conquered  galley's  beak. 

And  now  the  moon  breaks  through  the  night,  and  shows 

The  '  Royal '  bearing  down  upon  our  craft — 
Then  comes  a  broadside  close  at  hand,  which  strows 

Our  deck  with  bleeding  bodies  fore  and  aft. 
I  take  the  helm  ;    I  put  the  galley  near  : 

We  grapple  in  silver  sheen  of  moonlit  surge. 
Amid  the  '  Royal's  '  din  I  laugh  to  hear 
The  curse  of  many  a  British  mutineer. 

The  crack,  crack,  crack  of  boatswain's  biting  scourge. 

'  Ye  scourge  in  vain,'  quoth  I,  '  scourging  for  life 

Slaves  who  shall  row  no  more  to  save  the  Don  ' ; 
For  from  the  '  Royal's '  poop,  above  the  strife, 

Their  captain  gazes  at  our  Skeleton ! 
'  What !   is  it  thou.  Pirate  of  "  El  Dorado  "  ?  ' 

He  shouts  in  English  tongue.     And  there,  behold  ! 
Stands  he,  the  devil's  commodore,  Medrado. 
'  Ay !    ay  !  '  quoth  I,  '  Spain  owes  me  one  strappado 

For  scuttling  Philip's  ship  of  stolen  gold.' 

*  I  come  for  that  strappado  now,'  quoth  I. 

'  What  means  yon  thing  of  burning  bones  ? '  he  saith. 
'  'Tis  God's  Revenge  cries,  "  Bloody  Spain  shall  die  !  " 

The  king  of  El  Dorado's  name  is  Death. 
Strike  home,  ye  slaves ;   your  hour  is  coming  swift,' 

I  cry ;    '  strong  hands  are  stretched  to  save  you  now ; 
Show  yonder  spectre  you  are  worth  the  gift.' 
But  when  the  '  Royal,'  captured,  rides  adrift, 

I  look :    the  skeleton  hath  left  our  prow. 

When  all  are  slain,  the  tempest's  wangs  have  fled, 

But  still  the  sea  is  dreaming  of  the  storm : 
Far  down  the  offing  glows  a  spot  of  red. 

My  soul  knows  well  it  hath  that  Inca's  form. 
'  It  lights,'  quoth  I,  '  the  red  cross  banner  of  Spain 

There  on  the  flagship  where  Medina  sleeps — 
Hell's  banner,  wet  with  sweat  of  Indian's  pain. 
And  tears  of  women  yoked  to  treasure  train. 

Scarlet  of  blood  for  which  the  New  World  weeps.' 
W.-D.  28 


434        "  Christmas   at   the   *  Mermaid  '  " 

There  on  the  dark  the  flagship  of  the  Don  ■ 

To  me  seems  luminous  of  the  spectre's  glow ; 
But  soon  an  arc  of  gold,  and  then  the  sun, 

Rise  o'er  the  reddening  billows,  proud  and  slow ; 
Then,  through  the  curtains  of  the  morning  mist. 

That  take  all  shifting  colours  as  they  shake, 
I  see  the  great  Armada  coil  and  twist 
Miles,  miles  along  the  ocean's  amethyst, 

Like  hell's  old  snake  of  hate — the  winged  snake. 

And,  when  the  hazy  veils  of  Morn  are  thinned. 

That  snake  accursed,  with  wings  which  swell  and  puff 
Before  the  slackening  horses  of  the  wind. 

Turns  into  shining  ships  that  tack  and  luff. 
'  Behold,'  quoth  I,  '  their  floating  citadels, 

The  same  the  priests  have  vouched  for  musket-proof, 
Caracks  and  hulks  and  nimble  caravels, 
That  sailed  with  us  to  sound  of  Lisbon  bells — 

Yea,  sailed  from  Tagus'  mouth,  for  Christ's  behoof. 

For  Christ's  behoof  they  sailed  :    see  how  they  go 

With  that  red  skeleton  to  show  the  way 
There  sitting  on  Medina's  stem  aglow — 

A  hundred  sail  and  forty- nine,  men  say ; 
Behold  them,  brothers,  galleon  and  galeasse — 

Their  dizened  turrets  bright  of  many  a  plume. 
Their  gilded  poops,  their  shining  guns  of  brass. 
Their  trucks,  their  flags — behold  them,  how  they  pass — • 

With  God's  Revenge  for  figurehead — to  Doom  ! ' 

Then  Ben  Jonson,  the  symposiarch,  rises  and  calls 
upon  Raleigh  to  tell  the  story  of  the  defeat  of  the  Great 
Armada.  I  can  give  only  a  stanza  or  two  and  the 
chorus  : — 

Raleigh 

The  choirboys  sing  the  matin  song, 
When  down  falls  Seymour  on  the  Spaniard's  right. 

He  drives  the  wing — a  huddled  throng — 
Back  on  the  centre  ships,  that  steer  for  flight. 


The  Death-Struggle  in  the  Channel     435 

While  galleon  hurtles  galeasse, 
And  oars  that  fight  each  other  kill  the  slaves. 

As  scythes  cut  down  the  summer  grass, 

Drake  closes  on  the  writhing  mass. 
Through  which  the  balls  at  closest  ranges  pass, 
Skimming  the  waves. 

Fiercely  do  galley  and  galeasse  fight. 
Running  from  ship  to  ship  like  living  things. 

With  oars  like  legs,  vfith  beaks  that  smite. 
Winged  centipedes  they  seem  vnth.  tattered  wings. 

Through  smoke  we  see  their  chiefs  encased 
In  shining  mail  of  gold  where  blood  congeals ; 

And  once  I  see  wdthin  a  waist 

Wild  English  captives  ashen-faced. 
Their  bending  backs  by  Spanish  scourges  laced 
In  purple  weals. 

[David  Gwynn  here  leaps  up,  pale  and  panting,  and 
bares  a  scarred  arm,  but  at  a  sign  from  Raleigh 
sits  down  again. 

The  Don  fights  well,  but  fights  not  now 
The  cozened  Indian  whom  he  kissed  for  friend, 

To  pluck  the  gold  from  oflE  the  brow, 
Then  fling  the  flesh  to  priests  to  burn  and  rend. 

He  hunts  not  now  the  Indian  maid 
With  bloodhound's  bay — Peru's  confiding  daughter. 

Who  saw  in  flowery  bower  or  glade 

The  stranger's  god-like  cavalcade, 
And  worshipped,  while  he  planned  Pizarro's  trade 
Of  rape  and  slaughter. 

His  fight  is  now  with  Drake  and  Wynter, 
Hawkins,  and  Frobisher,  and  English  fire. 

Bullet  and  cannon  ball  and  splinter, 
Till  every  deck  gleams,  greased  with  bloody  mire : 

Heaven  smiles  to  see  that  battle  wage. 
Close  battle  of  musket,  carabine,  and  gun  : 

Oh,  vainly  doth  the  Spaniard  rage 

Like  any  wolf  that  tears  his  cage  ! 
'Tis  English  sails  shall  win  the  weather  gauge 
Till  set  of  sun ! 


436        "Christmas  at   the  'Mermaid'" 

Their  troops,  superfluous  as  their  gold, 
Out-numbering  all  their  seamen  two  to  one, 

Are  packed  away  in  every  hold — 
Targets  of  flesh  for  every  English  gun — 

Till,  like  Pizarro's  halls  of  blood. 
Or  slaughter-pens  where  swine  or  beeves  are  pinned, 

Lee-scuppers  pour  a  crimson  flood. 

Reddening  the  waves  for  many  a  rood, 
As  eastward,  eastward  still  the  galleons  scud 
Before  the  wind. 

The  chief  leit-motiv  of  the  poem  is  the  metrical  idea 
that  whenever  a  stanza  ends  with  the  word  '  sea,'  Ben 
Jonson  and  the  rest  of  the  jolly  companions  break  in- 
to this  superb  chorus  : — 

The  sea  ! 
Thus  did  England  fight ; 
And  shall  not  England  smite 
With  Drake's  strong  stroke  in  battles  yet  to  be  ? 
And  while  the  winds  have  power 
Shall  England  lose  the  dower 
She  won  in  that  great  hour — 
The  sea  ? 

Raleigh  leaves  oif  his  narrative  at  the  point  when  the 
Armada  is  driven  out  to  the  open  sea.  He  sits  down,  and 
Gwynn,  worked  into  a  frenzy  of  excitement,  now  starts 
up  and  finishes  the  story  in  the  same  metre,  but  in  quite 
a  different  spirit.  In  Gwynn's  fevered  imagination 
the  skeleton  which  he  describes  in  his  own  narrative  now 
leads  the  doomed  Armada  to  its  destruction  : — 

GwYNN 

With  towering  sterns,  with  golden  stems 
That  totter  in  the  smoke  before  their  foe, 

I  see  them  pass  the  mouth  of  Thames, 
With  death  above  the  billows,  death  below  ! 

Who  leads  them  down  the  tempest's  path, 


The  Skeleton  and   Mother   Carey        437 

From  Thames  to  Yare,  from  Yare  to  Tweedmouth  blown, 

Past  many  a  Scottish  hill  and  strath. 

All  helpless  in  the  wild  wind's  wrath. 
Each  mainmast  stooping,  creaking  like  a  lath  ? 
The  Skeleton ! 

At  length  with  toil  the  cape  is  passed. 
And  faster  and  faster  still  the  billows  come 

To  coil  and  boil  till  every  mast 
Is  flecked  with  clinging  flakes  of  snowy  foam. 

I  see,  I  see,  where  galleons  pitch. 
That  Inca's  bony  shape  burn  on  the  waves, 

Flushing  each  emerald  scarp  and  ditch. 

While  Mother  Carey,  Orkney's  witch. 
Waves  to  the  Spectre's  song  her  lantern-switch 
O'er  ocean-graves. 

The  glimmering  crown  of  Scotland's  head 
They  pass.     No  foe  dares  follow  but  the  storm. 

The  Spectre,  like  a  sunset  red. 
Illumines  mighty  Wrath's  defiant  form. 

And  makes  the  dreadful  granite  peak 
Burn  o'er  the  ships  with  brows  of  prophecy ; 

Yea,  makes  that  silent  countenance  speak 

Above  the  tempest's  foam  and  reek, 
More  loud  than  aU  the  loudest  winds  that  shriek, 
'  Tyrants,  ye  die  ! ' 

The  Spectre,  by  the  Orkney  Isles, 
Writes  '  God's  Revenge '  on  waves  that  climb  and  dash. 

Foaming  right  up  the  sand-built  piles. 
Where  ships  are  hurled.     It  sings  amid  the  crash ; 

Yea,  sings  amid  the  tempest's  roar. 
Snapping  of  ropes,  crackling  of  spars  set  free. 

And  yells  of  captives  chained  to  oar, 

And  cries  of  those  who  strike  for  shore, 
'  Spain's  murderous  breath  of  blood  shall  foul  no  more 
The  righteous  sea  !  ' 

The  poem  ends  with  the  famous  wassail  chorus  which 
has  been  often  quoted  in  anthologies  : — 


438        "  Christmas   at   the  *  Mermaid  ' ' 

WASSAIL  CHORUS 
Chorus 
Christmas  knows  a  merry,  merry  place, 
Where  he  goes  with  fondest  face, 

Brightest  eye,  brightest  hair  : 
Tell  the  Mermaid  where  is  that  one  place : 
Where  ? 

Raleigh 
'Tis  by  Devon's  glorious  halls. 

Whence,  dear  Ben,  I  come  again : 
Bright  with  golden  roofs  and  walls — 

El  Dorado's  rare  domain — 

Seem  those  halls  when  sunlight  launches 

Shafts  of  gold  through  leafless  branches. 

Where  the  winter's  feathery  mantle  blanches 

Field  and  farm  and  lane. 

Chorus 

Christmas  knows  a  merry,  merry  place, 

Where  he  goes  with  fondest  face, 

Brightest  eye,  brightest  hair  : 

Tell  the  Mermaid  where  is  that  one  place  : 

Where  ? 

Drayton 
'Tis  where  Avon's  wood-sprites  weave 
Through  the  boughs  a  lace  of  rime. 
While  the  bells  of  Christmas  Eve 

Fling  for  Will  the  Stratford-chime 
O'er  the  river-flags  embossed 
Rich  with  flowery  runes  of  frost — 
'  O'er  the  meads  where  snowy  tufts  are  tossed- 

Strains  of  olden  time. 

Chorus 

Christmas  knows  a  merry,  merry  place. 

Where  he  goes  with  fondest  face, 

Brightest  eye,  brightest  hair  : 

Tell  the  Mermaid  where  is  that  one  place  : 

Where  ? 


The  Wassail    Chorus  439 

Shakspeare's  Friend 

'Tis,  methinks,  on  any  ground 

Where  our  Shakspeare's  feet  are  set. 
There  smiles  Christmas,  holly-crowned 

With  his  blithest  coronet : 
Friendship's  face  he  loveth  well :  -^ 

'Tis  a  countenance  whose  spell 
Sheds  a  balm  o'er  every  mead  and  dell 
Where  we  used  to  fret. 

Chorus 

Christmas  knows  a  merry,  merry  place, 
Where  he  goes  with  fondest  face. 
Brightest  eye,  brightest  hair  :  ~ 

TeU  the  Mermaid  where  is  that  one  place 
Where  ? 

Heywood 

More  than  aU  the  pictures,  Ben, 

Winter  weaves  by  wood  or  stream, 
Christmas  loves  our  London,  when 

Rise  thy  clouds  of  wassail-steam — 
Clouds  like  these,  that,  curling,  take 
Forms  of  faces  gone,  and  wake 
Many  a  lay  from  lips  we  loved,  and  make 
London  like  a  dream. 

Chorus 
Christmas  knows  a  merry,  merry  place, 
Where  he  goes  with  fondest  face. 
Brightest  eye,  brightest  hair  : 
Tell  the  Mermaid  where  is  that  one  place : 
Where  ? 

Ben  Jonson 

Love's  old  songs  shall  never  die. 

Yet  the  new  shall  suffer  proof ; 
Love's  old  drink  of  Yule  brew  I, 

Wassail  for  new  love's  behoof : 
Drink  the  drink  I  brew,  and  sing 


440         '  Christmas  at  the   *  Mermaid '  " 

Till  the  berried  branches  swing, 
Till  our  song  make  all  the  Mermaid  ring- 
Yea,  from  rush  to  roof. 

>i  Finale 

Christmas  loves  this  merry,  merry  place  : — 
Christmas  saith  with  fondest  face 
Brightest  eye,  brightest  hair  : 
Ben !    the  drink  tastes  rare  of  sack  and  mace : 
Rare ! ' 


This  poem,  when  it  first  appeared  in  the  volume  of 
'  The  Coming  of  Love,'  fine  as  it  is,  was  overshadowed 
by  the  wild  and  romantic  poem  which  lends  its  name  to 
the  volume.     But  in  1902,  Mr.  John  Lane  included  it 
in  his  beautiful  series,  *  Flowers  of  Parnassus,'  where  it 
was  charmingly  illustrated  by  Mr.  Herbert  Cole,  and  this 
widened   its   vogue   considerably.     There   is   no   doubt 
that  for  originality,  for  power,  and  for  music,  "  Christ- 
mas  at    the  '  Mermaid '  "  is  enough  to  form  the    base 
of  any  poet's  reputation.       It  has  been  enthusiastically 
praised  by  some  of  the  foremost  writers  of  our  time.     I 
have  permission  to  print  only  one  of  the  letters  in  its 
praise  which  the  author  received,  but  that  is  an  import- 
ant one,  as  it  comes  from  Thomas  Hardy,  who  wrote  : — 

"  I  have  been  beginning  Christmas,  in  a  way,  by  reading 
over  the  fire  your  delightful  little  *  Christmas  at  the 
"  Mermaid  "  '  which  it  was  most  kind  of  you  to  send.  I 
was  carried  back  right  into  Armada  times  by  David 
Gwynn's  vivid  story  :  it  seems  remarkable  that  you  should 
have  had  the  conjuring  power  to  raise  up  those  old  years 
so  brightly  in  your  own  mind  first,  as  to  be  able  to 
exhibit  them  to  readers  in  such  high  relief  of  three 
dimensions,  as  one  may  say. 


Thomas   Hardy   on   the   Poem  441 

The  absence  of  Shakespeare  strikes  me  as  being  one  of 
the  finest  touches  of  the  poem  :  it  throws  one  into  a 
*  humourous  melancholy ' — and  we  feel  him,  in  some 
curious  way,  more  than  if  he  had  been  there." 


Chapter    XXVIII 

CONCLUSION 

ASSUREDLY,'  says;  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  in  his 
essay  on  Thoreau, '  there  is  no  profession  so  coura- 
geous as  that  of  the  pen.'  Well,  in  coming  to  the  end 
of  my  task — a  task  which  has  been  a  labour  of  love — I  wish 
I  could  feel  confident  that  I  have  not  been  too  courageous 
— that  I  have  satisfactorily  done  what  I  set  out  to  do. 
But  I  have  passed  my  four-hundred  and  fortieth  page,  and 
yet  I  seem  to  halve  let  down  only  a  child's  bucket  into  a 
sea  of  ideas  that  has  no  limit.  Out  of  scores  upon  scores 
of  articles  buried  in  many  periodicals  I  have  been  able  to 
give  three  or  four  from  the  *  Athenaeum,'  none  from  the 
'  Examiner,'  and  none  out  of  the  '  Nineteenth  Century,' 
'The  Fortnightly  Review,'  'Harper's  Magazine,'  etc. 
Still,  I  have  been  able  to  show  that  a  large  proportion 
of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  scattered  writings  preaches  the 
same  peculiar  doctrine  in  a  ratiocinative  form  which  in 
'  Aylwin  '  and  '  The  Coming  of  Love '  is  artistically 
enunciated ;  that  this  doctrine  is  of  the  greatest  import- 
ance at  the  present  time,  when  science  seems  to  be  reveal- 
ing a  system  of  the  universe  so  deeply  opposed  to  the 
system  which  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century  seemed 
to  be  revealed  ;  and  that  this  doctrine  of  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  is  making  a  very  deep  impression  upon  the 
generation  to  which  I  belong.  If  it  should  be  said  that  in 
speaking  for  the  younger  generation  I  am  speaking  for  a 
pigmy  race  (and  I  sometimes  *^f ear  that  we  are  pigmies 

♦  42 


'  The   New   Day  '  443 

when  I  remember  the  stature  of  our  fathers),  I  am  con- 
tent to  appeal  to  one  of  the  older  generation,  who  has 
spoken  words  in  praise  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  as  a  poet, 
which  would  demand  even  my  courage  to  echo.  I  mean 
Dr.  Gordon  Hake,  whose  volume  of  sonnets,  entitled, 
*  The  New  Day,'  was  published  in  1890.  It  was  these 
remarkable  sonnets  which  moved  Frank  Groome  to  dub 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  *  homo  ne  quidem  unius  libri,'  a 
literary  celebrity  who  had  not  published  a  single  book. 
I  have  already  referred  to  *  The  New  Day,'  but  I 
have  not  given  an  adequate  account  of  this  sonnet- 
sequence.  In  their  nobility  of  spirit,  their  exalted  pas- 
sion of  friendship,  their  single-souled  purity  of  loyal- 
hearted  love,  I  do  not  think  they  have  ever  been  sur- 
passed. It  is  a  fine  proof  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's 
genius  for  friendship  that  he  should  be  able  uncon- 
sciously to  enlink  himself  to  the  souls  of  his  seniors, 
his  coevals  and  his  juniors,  and  that  there  should  be  be- 
tween him  and  the  men  of  three  generations,  equal  links 
of  equal  affection.  But  I  must  not  lay  stress  on  the 
whimsies  of  chronology  and  the  humours  of  the  calendar, 
for  all  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  friends  are  young,  and  the 
youngest  of  them,  Mr.  George  Meredith,  is  the  oldest. 
The  youthfulness  of  *  The  New  Day '  makes  it  hard 
to  believe  that  it  was  written  by  a  septuagenarian.  The 
dedication  is  full  of  the  fine  candour  of  a  romantic 
boy  : — 

"  To  *  W.  T.  W.,'  the  friend  who  has  gone  with  me 
through  the  study  of  Nature,  accompanied  me  to  her 
loveliest  places  at  home  and  in  other  lands,  and  shared 
with  me  the  reward  she  reserves  for  her  ministers  and 
interpreters,  I  dedicate  this  book." 

The  following  sonnet  on  '  Friendship '  expresses  a 
very  rare  mood  and  a  very  high  ideal : — 


444  Conclusion 

Friendship  is  love's  full  beauty  unalloyed  '■     . 

With  passion  that  may  waste  in  selfishness, 
Fed  only  at  the  heart  and  never  cloyed  : 

Such  is  our  friendship  ripened  but  to  bless. 
It  draws  the  arrow  from  the  bleeding  wound 

With  cheery  look  that  makes  a  winter  bright ; 
It  saves  the  hope  from  faUing  to  the  ground, 

And  turns  the  restless  pillow  towards  the  Ught.  i 

To  be  another's  in  his  dearest  want, 

At  struggle  with  a  thousand  racking  throes,  ^ 

When  all  the  balm  that  Heaven  itself  can  grant 

Is  that  which  friendship's  soothing  hand  bestows : 
How  joyful  to  be  joined  in  such  a  love, —  j 

We  two, — may  it  portend  the  days  above  !  » 

The  volume  consists  of  ninety-three  sonnets  of  the 
same  fine  order.  Many  English  and  American  critics  have 
highly  praised  them,  but  not  too  highly.  This  vener- 
able *  parable  poet '  did  not  belong  to  my  generation. 
Nor  did  he  belong  to  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  generation. 
His  day  was  the  day  before  yesterday,  and  yet  he  wrote 
these  sonnets  when  he  was  past  seventy,  not  to  glorify 
himself,  but  to  glorify  his  friend.  They  are  one  long 
impassioned  appeal  to  that  friend  to  come  forward  and 
take  his  place  among  his  peers.  The  indifference  to 
fame  of  Theodore  Watts  is  one  of  the  most  bewildering 
enigmas  of  literature.  I  have  already  quoted  what 
Gordon  Hake  says  about  the  man  who  when  the 
*  New  Day '  was  written  had  not  published  a  single 
book. 

With  regard  to  the  unity  binding  together  all  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton's  writings,  I  can,  at  least,  as  I  have  shown 
in  the  Introduction,  speak  with  the  authority  of  a  careful 
student  of  them.  With  the  exception  of  the  late  Pro- 
fessor Strong,  who  when  *  The  Coming  of  Love  '  ap- 
peared, spoke  out  so  boldly  upon  this  subject  in  *  Litera- 


The   Growth  of  Aylwinism  445 

ture,'  I  doubt  if  anyone  has  studied  those  writings  more 
carefully  than  I  have ;  and  yet  the  difficulty  of  discover- 
ing the  one  or  two  quotable  essays  which  more  than 
the  others  expound  and  amplify  their  central  doctrine 
has  been  so  great  that  I  am  dubious  as  to  whether,  in 
the  press  of  my  other  work,  I  have  achieved  my  aim  as 
satisfactorily  as  it  would  have  been  achieved  by  another 
— especially  by  Professor  Strong,  had  he  not  died  be- 
fore he  could  write  his  promised  essay  upon  the  inner 
thought  of  '  Aylwinism  '  in  the  *  Cyclopaedia  of  English 
Literature.'  But,  even  if  I  have  failed  adequately  to 
expound  the  gospel  of  ^Aylwinism,'  it  is  undeniable  that, 
since  the  publication  of  '  Aylwin  '  (whether  as  a  result 
of  that  publication  or  not),  there  has  been  an  amazing 
growth  of  what  may  be  called  the  transcendental  cosmo- 
gony of  *  Aylwinism.' 

Dr.  Robertson  NicoU,  discussing  the  latest  edition  of 
'  Aylwin  ' — the  *  Arvon  '  illustrated  edition — says  : — 

"  When  '  Aylwin '  was  in  type,  the  author,  getting 
alarmed  at  its  great  length,  somewhat  mercilessly  slashed 
into  it  to  shorten  it,  and  the  more  didactic  parts  of  the 
book  went  first.  Now  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has  restored 
one  or  two  of  these  excised  passages,  notably  one  in  which 
he  summarizes  his  well-known  views  of  the  '  great  Rena- 
scence of  Wonder,  which  set  in  in  Europe  at  the  close  of 
the  eighteenth  century  and  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth.' In  one  of  these  passages  he  has  anticipated  and 
bettered  Mr.  Balfour's  speculations  at  the  recent  meet- 
ing of  the  British  Association." 

Something  like  the  same  remark  was  made  in  the 
*  Athenaeum  '   of  September  3,  1904  : — 

"  The  writer  has  restored  certain  didactic  passages  of 


44^  Conclusion 

the  story  which  were  eliminated  before  the  publication 
of  the  book,  owing  to  its  great  length.  Though  the 
teaching  of  the  book  is  complete  without  the  restora- 
tions, it  seems  a  pity  that  they  were  ever  struck  out, 
because  they  appear  to  have  anticipated  the  striking 
remarks  of  Mr.  Balfour  at  the  British  Association  the 
other  day,  to  say  nothing  of  the  utterances  of  certain 
scientific  writers  who  have  been  discussing  the  tran- 
scendental side  of  Nature." 

The  restorations  to  which  Dr.  NicoU  and  '  The 
Athenaeum '  refer  are  excerpts  from '  The  Veiled  Queen,' 
by  Aylwin's  father.  The  first  of  these  comes  in  at  the 
conclusion  of  the  chapter  called  '  The  Revolving  Cage  of 
Circumstance  '  and  runs  thus : — 

*'  *  The  one  important  fact  of  the  twentieth  century 
will  be  the  growth  and  development  of  that  great  Re- 
nascence of  Wonder  which  set  in  in  Europe  at  the  close 
of  the  eighteenth  century  and  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth. 

The  warring  of  the  two  impulses  governing  man — the 
impulse  of  wonder  and  the  impulse  of  acceptance — will 
occupy  all  the  energies  of  the  next  century. 

The  old  impulse  of  wonder  which  came  to  the  human 
race  in  its  infancy  has  to  come  back — has  to  triumph — 
before  the  morning  of  the  final  emancipation  of  man  can 
dawn. 

But  the  wonder  will  be  exercised  in  very  different 
fields  from  those  in  which  it  was  exercised  in  the  past. 
The  materialism,  which  at  this  moment  seems  to  most 
thinkers  inseparable  from  the  idea  of  evolution,  will  go. 
Against  their  own  intentions  certain  scientists  are  show- 
ing that  the  spiritual  force  called  life  is  the  maker  and  not 
the  creature  of  organism — is  a  something  outside  the 


Philip   Aylwin*s   Prophecy  447 

material  world,  a  something  which  uses  the  material 
world  as  a  means  of  phenomenal  expression. 

The  materialist,  with  his  primitive  and  confiding 
belief  in  the  testimony  of  the  senses,  is  beginning  to  be 
left  out  in  the  cold,  when  men  like  Sir  W.  R.  Groves  turn 
round  on  him  and  tell  him  that  "  the  principle  of  all  certi- 
tude "  is  not  and  cannot  be  the  testimony  of  his  own 
senses ;  that  these  senses,  indeed,  are  no  absolute  tests  of 
phenomena  at  all ;  that  probably  man  is  surrounded  by 
beings  he  can  neither  see,  feel,  hear,  nor  smell ;  and  that, 
notwithstanding  the  excellence  of  his  own  eyes,  ears,  and 
nose,  the  universe  the  materialist  is  mapping  out  so  deftly 
is,  and  must  be,  monophysical,  lightless,  colourless,  sound- 
less— a  phantasmagoric  show — a  deceptive  series  of  un- 
dulations, which  become  colour,  or  sound,  or  what  not, 
according  to  the  organism  upon  which  they  fall.' 

These  words  were  followed  by  a  sequence  of  mystical 
sonnets  about '  the  Omnipotence  of  Love,'  which  showed, 
beyond  doubt,  that  if  my  father  was  not  a  scientific 
thinker,  he  was,  at  least,  a  very  original  poet." 

The  second  restored  excerpt  from  *  The  Veiled 
Queen  '  comes  in  at  the  end  of  the  chapter  called 
'  The  Magic  of  Snowdon,'  and  runs  thus  : — 

"  I  think,  indeed,  that  I  had  passed  into  that  sufistic 
ecstasy  expressed  by  a  writer  often  quoted  by  my  father, 
an  Oriental  writer,  Ferridoddin  : — 

With  love  I  burn  :    the  centre  is  within  me ; 
While  in  a  circle  everywhere  around  me 
Its  Wonder  lies — 

that  exalted  mood,  I  mean,  described  in  the  great  chapter 
on  the  Renascence  of  Wonder  which  forms  the  very  core 
and  heart-thought  of  the  strange  book  so  strangely  des- 


44^  Conclusion 

tined  to  govern  the  entire  drama  of  my  life,  *  The  Veiled 
Queen.' 

The  very  words  of  the  opening  of  that  chapter  came 
to  me  : 

'  The  omnipotence  of  love — its  power  of  knitting 
together  the  entire  universe — is,  of  course,  best  under- 
stood by  the  Oriental  mind.  Just  after  the  loss  of  my 
dear  wife  I  wrote  the  following  poem  called  "  The  Be- 
douin Child,"  dealing  with  the  strange  feeling  among 
the  Bedouins  about  girl  children,  and  I  translated  it  into 
Arabic.  Among  these  Bedouins  a  father  in  enumerating 
his  children  never  counts  his  daughters,  because  a  daughter 
is  considered  a  disgrace. 

Ily^s  the  prophet,  lingering  'neath  the  moon, 

Heard  from  a  tent  a  child's  heart-withering  wail, 
Mixt  with  the  message  of  the  nightingale. 
And,  entering,  found,  sunk  in  mysterious  swoon, 
A  little  maiden  dreaming  there  alone. 
She  babbled  of  her  father  sitting  pale 
'Neath  wings  of  Death — 'mid  sights  of  sorrow  and  bale. 
And  pleaded  for  his  life  in  piteous  tone. 

"  Poor  child,  plead  on,"  the  succouring  prophet  saith, 
While  she,  with  eager  lips,  Hke  one  who  tries 
To  kiss  a  dream,  stretches  her  arms  and  cries 
To  Heaven  for  help — "  Plead  on  ;    such  pure  love-breath. 
Reaching  the  throne,  might  stay  the  wings  of  Death 
That,  in  the  Desert,  fan  thy  father's  eyes." 

The  drouth-slain  camels  lie  on  every  hand  ; 

Seven  sons  await  the  morning  vultures'  claws ; 

'Mid  empty  water-skins  and  camel  maws 
The  father  sits,  the  last  of  all  the  band. 
He  mutters,  drowsing  o'er  the  moonlit  sand, 

"  Sleep  fans  my  brow ;   sleep  makes  us  all  pashas ; 

Or,  if  the  wings  are  Death's,  why  Azraeel  draws 
A  childless  father  from  an  empty  land." 


The  Omnipotence  of  Love  449 

"  Nay,"  saith  a  Voice,  "  the  wind  of  Azraeel's  wings 

A  child's  sweet  breath  has  stilled  :   so  God  decrees  :  " 

A  camel's  bell  comes  tinkling  on  the  breeze,  > 

Filling  the  Bedouin's  brain  with  bubble  of  springs 
And  scent  of  flowers  and  shadow  of  wavering  trees, 

Where,  from  a  tent,  a  little  maiden  sings. 

*  Between  this  reading  of  Nature,  which  makes  her 
but  "  the  superficial  film  "  of  the  immensity  of  God,  and 
that  which  finds  a  mystic  heart  of  love  and  beauty  beating 
within  the  bosom  of  Nature  herself,  I  know  no  real  differ- 
ence. Sufism,  in  some  form  or  another,  could  not  pos- 
sibly be  confined  to  Asia.  The  Greeks,  though  strangers 
to  the  mystic  element  of  that  Beauty-worship  which  in 
Asia  became  afterwards  Sufism,  could  not  have  exhibited 
a  passion  for  concrete  beauty  such  as  theirs  without  feel- 
ing that,  deeper  than  Tartarus,  stronger  than  Destiny 
and  Death,  the  great  heart  of  Nature  is  beating  to  the 
tune  of  universal  love  and  beauty.'  " 

With  regard  to  the  two  sonnets  quoted  above,  a  great 
poet  has  said  that  the  method  of  depicting  the  power  of 
love  in  them  is  sublime.  '  The  Slave  girl's  Progress  to 
Paradise,'  however,  is  equally  powerful  and  equally  orig- 
inal. The  feeling  in  the  '  Bedouin  Child '  and  in  '  The 
Slave  Girl's  Progress  to  Paradise  '  is  exactly  like  that 
which  inspires  '  The  Coming  of  Love.'  When  Percy 
sees  Rhona's  message  in  the  sunrise  he  exclaims :  — 

But  now — not  all  the  starry  Virtues  seven 
Seem  strong  as  she,  nor  Time,  nor  Death,  nor  Night. 
And  morning  says,  '  Love  hath  such  godlike  might 
That  if  the  sun,  the  moon,  and  all  the  stars. 
Nay,  all  the  spheral  spirits  who  guide  their  cars. 
Were  quelled  by  doom.  Love's  high-creative  leaven 
Could  light  new  worlds.'     If,  then,  this  Lord  of  Fate, 
W.-D.  29 


45  o  Conclusion 

When  death  calls  in  the  stars,  can  re-create, 
Is  it  a  madman's  dream  that  Love  can  show 
Rhona,  my  Rhona,  in  yon  ruby  glow, 

And  build  again  my  heaven  ? 

The  same  mystical  faith  in  the  power  of  love  is  pas- 
sionately affirmed  in  the  words  of  *  The  Spirit  of  the 
Sunrise/  addressed  to  the  bereaved  poet  : — 

Though  Love  be  mocked  by  Death's  obscene  derision, 

Love  still  is  Nature's  truth  and  Death  her  He ; 

Yet  hard  it  is  to  see  the  dear  flesh  die. 
To  taste  the  fell  destroyer's  crowning  spite 
That  blasts  the  soul  with  life's  most  cruel  sight. 
Corruption's  hand  at  work  in  Life's  transition : 

This  sight  was  spared  thee  :   thou  shalt  still  retain 

Her  body's  image  pictured  in  thy  brain  ; 
The  flowers  above  her  weave  the  only  shroud 
Thine  eye  shall  see :   no  stain  of  Death  shall  cloud 
Rhona  !      Behold  the  vision ! 

Some  may  call  this  too  mystical — some  may  dislike  it 
on  other  accounts — but  few  will  dream  of  questioning 
its  absolute  originality. 

Let  me  now  turn  to  those  words  of  Mr.  Balfour's  to 
which  the  passages  quoted  from  '  The  Veiled  Queen  ' 
have  been  compared.  In  his  presidential  address  to  the 
British  Association,  entitled,  *  Reflections  suggested  by 
the  New  Theory  of  Matter,'  he  said  : — 

"  We  claim  to  found  all  our  scientific  opinions  on  ex- 
perience :  and  the  experience  on  which  we  found  our 
theories  of  the  physical  universe  is  our  sense  of  perception 
of  that  universe.  That  is  experience  ;  and  in  this  region 
of  belief  there  is  no  other.  Yet  the  conclusions  which 
thus  profess  to  be  entirely  founded  upon  experience  are 
to  all  appearance  fundamentally  opposed  to  it ;  our  know- 


The    New   Theory   of  Matter  451 

ledge  of  reality  is  based  upon  illusion,  and  the  very  con- 
ceptions we  use  in  describing  it  to  others,  or  in  thinking 
of  it  ourselves,  are  abstracted  from  anthropomorphic 
fancies,  which  science  forbids  us  to  beHeve  and  nature 
compels  us  to  employ. 

Observe,  then,  that  in  order  of  logic  sense  perceptions 
supply  the  premisses  from  which  we  draw  all  our  know- 
ledge of  the  physical  world.  It  is  they  which  tell  us 
there  is  a  physical  world  ;  it  is  on  their  authority  that  we 
learn  its  character.  But  in  order  of  causation  they  are 
effects  due  (in  part)  to  the  constitution  of  our  orders  of 
sense.  What  we  see  depends,  not  merely  on  what  there 
is  to  be  seen,  but  on  our  eyes.  What  we  hear  depends 
not  merely  on  what  there  is  to  hear,  but  on  our  ears. 


I  may  mention  here  a  curious  instance  of  the  way 
in  which  any  idea  that  is  new  is  ridiculed,  and  of  the  way 
in  which  it  is  afterwards  accepted  as  a  simple  truth.  One 
of  the  reviewers  of  '  Aylwin  '  was  much  amused  by  the 
description  of  the  hero's  emotions  when  he  stood  in  the 
lower  room  of  Mrs.  Gudgeon's  cottage  waiting  to  be  con- 
fronted upstairs  by  Winifred's  corpse,  stretched  upon  a 
squalid  mattress  : — 

"  At  the  sight  of  the  squalid  house  in  which  Winifred 
had  lived  and  died  I  passed  into  a  new  world  of  horror. 
Dead  matter  had  become  conscious,  and  for  a  second  or 
two  it  was  not  the  human  being  before  me,  but  the  rusty 
iron,  the  broken  furniture,  the  great  patches  of  brick  and 
dirty  mortar  where  the  plaster  had  fallen  from  the  walls, 
— it  was  these  which  seemed  to  have  life — a  terrible  life — 
and  to  be  talking  to  me,  telling  me  what  I  dared  not  listen 
to  about  the  triumph  of  evil  over  good.  I  knew  that 
the  woman  was  still  speaking,  but  for  a  time  I  heard  no 


452  Conclusion 

sound — my  senses  could  receive  no  impressions  save  from 
the  sinister  eloquence  of  the  dead  and  yet  living  matter 
around  me.  Not  an  object  there  that  did  not  seem 
charged  with  the  wicked  message  of  the  heartless  Fates." 

*  Fancy,'  said  the  reviewer,  *  any  man  out  of  Bedlam 
feeling  as  if  dead  matter  were  alive ! ' 

Well,  apart  from  the  psychological  subtlety  of  this 
passage,  our  critic  must  have  been  startled  by  the  dec- 
laration lately  made  by  a  sane  man  of  science,  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  dead  matter — and  that  every  particle 
of  what  is  called  dead  matter  is  alive  and  shedding  an 
aura  around  it ! 

Had  the  mass  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  scattered  writ- 
ings been  collected  into  volumes,  or  had  a  representative 
selection  from  them  been  made,  their  unity  as  to  central 
idea  with  his  imaginative  work,  and  also  the  importance 
of  that  central  idea,  would  have  been  brought  prominently 
forward,  and  then  there  would  have  been  no  danger  of  his 
contribution  to  the  latest  movement — the  anti-material- 
istic movement — of  English  thought  and  English  feeling 
being  left  unrecognized.  Lost  such  teachings  as  his 
never  could  have  been,  for,  as  Minto  said  years  ago, 
their  colour  tinges  a  great  deal  of  the  literature  of  our 
time.  The  influence  of  the  '  Athenaeum,'  not  only  in 
England,  but  also  in  America  and  on  the  Continent,  was 
always  very  great — and  very  great  of  course  must  have 
been  the  influence  of  the  writer  who  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century  spoke  in  it  with  such  emphasis.  Therefore,  if 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  had  himself  collected  or  selected  his 
essays,  or  if  he  had  allowed  any  of  his  friends  to  collect  or 
select  them,  this  book  of  mine  would  not  have  been 
written,  for  more  competent  hands  would  have  under- 
taken the  task.     But  a  study  of  work  which,  originally 


Difficulty   of  the   Author's  Task        453 

issued  in  fragments,  now  lies  buried  '  full  fathom  five  ' 
in  the  columns  of  various  journals,  could,  I  felt,  be  un- 
dertaken only  by  a  cadet  of  letters  like  myself.  There 
are  many  of  us  younger  men  who  express  views  about 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  work  which  startle  at  times  those 
who  are  unfamiliar  with  it.  And  I,  coming  forward  for 
the  moment  as  their  spokesman,  have  long  had  the  desire 
to  justify  the  faith  that  is  in  us,  and  in  the  wide  and 
still  widening  audience  his  imaginative  work  has  won. 
But  I  doubt  if  I  should  have  undertaken  it  had  I 
realized  the  magnitude  of  the  task.  For  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  articles,  called  *  reviews,'  are  for 
the  most  part  as  unlike  reviews  as  they  can  well  be. 
No  matter  what  may  have  been  the  book  placed  at 
the  head  of  the  article,  it  was  used  merely  as  an  oppor- 
tunity for  the  writer  to  pour  forth  generalizations  upon 
literature  and  life,  or  upon  the  latest  scientific  specula- 
tions, or  upon  the  latest  reverie  of  philosophy,  in  a  stream, 
often  a  torrent,  coruscating  with  brilliancies,  and  alive 
with  interwoven  colours  like  that  of  the  river  in  the  moun- 
tains of  Kaf  described  in  his  birthday  sonnet  to  Tenny- 
son. Take,  for  instance,  that  great  essay  on  the  Psalms 
which  I  have  used  as  the  key-note  of  this  study.  The 
book  at  the  head  of  the  review  was  not,  as  might  have 
been  supposed,  a  discourse  learned,  or  philosophical, 
or  emotional,  upon  the  Psalms — but  a  little  unpretentious 
metrical  version  of  the  Psalms  by  Lord  Lome.  Only 
a  clear-sighted  and  daring  editor  would  have  printed 
such  an  article  as  a  review.  But  I  doubt  if  there  ever 
was  a  more  prescient  journalist  than  he  who  sat  in  the 
editorial  chair  at  that  time.  A  man  of  scholarly  accom- 
plishments and  literary  taste,  he  knew  that  an  article 
such  as  this  would  be  a  huge  success ;  would  resound 
through  the  world  of  letters.      The  article,  I   believe. 


454  Conclusion 

was  more  talked  about  in  literary  circles  than  any  book 
that  had  come  out  during  that  month. 

Again,  take  that  definition  of  humour  which  I  seized 
upon  (page  384)  to  illustrate  my  exposition  of  that 
wonderful  character  in  *  Ay  1  win  '  —  Mrs.  Gudgeon,  a 
definition  that  seems,  as  one  writer  has  said,  to  make  all 
other  talk  about  humour  cheap  and  jejune.  It  is  in  a  re- 
view of  an  extremely  futile  history  of  humour.  Now  let 
the  reader  consider  the  difficult  task  before  a  writer  in 
my  position — the  task  of  searching  for  a  few  among  the 
innumerable  half-remembered  points  of  interest  that 
turn  up  in  the  most  unexpected  places.  Of  course,  if 
the  space  allotted  to  me  by  my  publishers  had  been 
unlimited,  and  if  my  time  had  been  unlimited,  I 
should  have  been  able  to  give  so  large  a  number  of  ex- 
cerpts from  the  articles  as  to  make  my  selection  really 
representative  of  what  has  been  called  the  "  modern 
Sufism  of  '  Aylwin.'  "  But  in  this  regard  my  publishers 
have  already  been  as  liberal  and  as  patient  as  possible. 
After  all,  the  best,  as  well  as  the  easiest  way,  to  show 
that  '  Aylwin,'  and  '  The  Coming  of  Love,'  are  but 
the  imaginative  expression  of  a  poetic  religion  familiar 
to  the  readers  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  criticism  for 
twenty-five  years,  is  to  quote  an  illuminating  passage 
upon  the  subject  from  one  of  the  articles  in  the  '  Ath- 
enaeum.' Moreover,  I  shall  thus  escape  what  I  con- 
fess I  dread — the  sight  of  my  own  prose  at  the  end  of 
my  book  in  juxtaposition  to  the  prose  of  a  past  master 
of  English  style  : — 

"  The  time  has  not  yet  arrived  for  poetry  to  utilize 
even  the  results  of  science  ;  such  results  as  are  offered  to 
her  are  dust  and  ashes.  Happily,  however,  nothing  in 
science  is  permanent  save  mathematics.     As  a  great  man 


Kisagotamr  and   the  Pile  of   Charcoal    455 

of  science  has  said,  *  everything  is  provisional.'  Dr.  Eras- 
mus Darwin,  following  the  science  of  his  day,  wrote  a 
long  poem  on  the  '  Loves  of  the  Plants,'  by  no  means 
a  foolish  poem,  though  it  gave  rise  to  the  *  Loves  of  the 
Triangles,'  and  though  his  grandson  afterwards  dis- 
covered that  the  plants  do  not  love  each  other  at  all,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  hate  each  other  furiously — *  struggle  for 
life '  with  each  other,  *  survive '  against  each  other — just  as 
though  they  were  good  men  and  '  Christians.'  But  if  a  poet 
were  to  set  about  writing  a  poem  on  the  '  Hates  of  the 
Plants,'  nothing  is  more  likely  than  that,  before  he  could 
finish  it,  Mr.  Darwin  will  have  discovered  that  the  plants 
do  love  after  all ;  just  as — after  it  was  a  settled  thing  that 
the  red  tooth  and  claw  did  aU  the  business  of  progression 
— he  delighted  us  by  discovering  that  there  was  another 
factor  which  had  done  half  the  work — the  enormous  and 
very  proper  admiration  which  the  females  have  had  for 
the  males  from  the  very  earliest  forms  upwards.  In  such 
a  case,  the  *  Hates  of  the  Plants '  would  have  become 
'  inadequate.'  Already,  indeed,  there  are  faint  signs  of 
the  physicists  beginning  to  find  out  that  neither  we  nor 
the  plants  hate  each  other  quite  so  much  as  they  thought, 
and  that  Nature  is  not  quite  so  bad  as  she  seems.  '  She 
is  an  ^olian  harp,'  says  Novalis,  *  a  musical  instrument 
whose  tones  are  the  re-echo  of  higher  strings  within  us.' 
And  after  all  there  are  higher  strings  within  us  just  as 
real  as  those  which  have  caused  us  to  '  survive,'  and 
poetry  is  right  in  ignoring  *  interpretations,'  and  giving 
us '  Earthly  Paradises '  instead.  She  must  wait,  it  seems ; 
or  rather,  if  this  aspiring  '  century  '  will  keep  thrusting 
these  unlovely  results  of  science  before  her  eyes,  she  must 
treat  them  as  the  beautiful  girl  Kisagotami  treated  the 
ugly  pile  of  charcoal.  A  certain  rich  man  woke  up  one 
morning  and  found  that  all  his  enormous  wealth  was 


45  6  Conclusion 

turned  to  a  huge  heap  of  charcoal.  A  friend  who  called 
upon  him  in  his  misery,  suspecting  how  the  case  really- 
stood,  gave  him  certain  advice,  which  he  thus  acted  upon. 
*  The  Thuthe,  following  his  friend's  instructions,  spread 
some  mats  in  the  bazaar,  and,  piling  them  upon  a  large 
heap  of  his  property  which  was  turned  into  charcoal, 
pretended  to  be  selling  it.  Some  people,  seeing  it,  said, 
"  Why  does  he  sell  charcoal  ?  "  Just  at  this  time  a  young 
girl,  named  Kisagotami,  who  was  worthy  to  be  owner  of 
the  property,  and  who,  having  lost  both  her  parents,  was 
in  a  wretched  condition,  happened  to  come  to  the  bazaar 
on  some  business.  When  she  saw  the  heap,  she  said, 
"  My  lord  Thuthe,  all  the  people  sell  clothes,  tobacco, 
oil,  honey,  and  treacle  ;  how  is  it  that  you  pile  up  gold 
and  silver  for  sale  ?  "  The  Thuthe  said,  "  Madam,  give 
me  that  gold  and  silver."  Kisagotami,  taking  up  a  hand- 
ful of  it,  brought  it  to  him.  What  the  young  girl  had 
in  her  hand  no  sooner  touched  the  Thuthe's  hand  than 
it  became  gold  and  silver.'  " 

I  cannot  find  a  clearer  note  for  the  close  of  this  book 
than  that  which  sounds  in  one  of  the  latest  and 
one  of  the  finest  of  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  sonnets.  It 
was  composed  on  the  last  night  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  a  century  which  will  be  associated  with 
many  of  the  dear  friends  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has 
lost,  and,  as  I  must  think,  associated  also  with  himself. 
The  lines  have  a  very  special  charm  for  me,  because 
they  show  the  turn  which  the  poet's  noble  optim- 
ism has  taken;  they  show  that  faith  in  my  own 
generation  which  for  so  many  years  has  illumined  his 
work,  and  which  has  endeared  him  to  us  all.  I  wish 
I  could  be  as  hopeful  as  this  nineteenth  century  poet 
with  regard  to  the   poets   who  will  carry  the  torch  of 


*  The  Argonauts  of  the   New  Age  ^     457 

imagination  and  romance  through  the  twentieth  century ; 
but  whether  or  not  there  are  any  poets  among  us  who 
are  destined  to  bring  in  the  Golden  Fleece,  it  is  good  to 
see  '  the  Poet  of  the  Sunrise  '  setting  the  trumpet  of 
optimism  to  his  lips,  and  heralding  so  cheerily  the  coming 
of  the  new  argonauts  : — 

THE    ARGONAUTS    OF   THE   NEW   AGE 

THE   POET 

[In  starlight,  listening  to  the  chimes  in  the 
distance,  which  sound  clear  through  the 
leafless  trees. 

Say,  will  new  heroes  win  the  '  Fleece,'  ye  spheres 
Who — whether  around  some  King  of  Suns  ye  roll 
Or  move  right  onward  to  some  destined  goal 

In  Night's  vast  heart — ^know  what  Great  Morning  nears  ? 

THE   STARS 

Since  Love's  Star  rose  have  nineteen  hundred  years 
Written  such  runes  on  Time's  remorseless  scroll, 
Impeaching  Earth's  proud  birth,  the  human  soul. 

That  we,  the  bright-browed  stars,  grow  dim  with  tears. 

Did  those  dear  poets  you  loved  win  Light's  release  ? 
What  *  ship  of  Hope '  shall  sail  to  such  a  world  ? 

[The  night  passes,  and  morning  breaks 
gorgeously  over   the    tree    top. 

THE   POET 

Ye  fade,  ye  stars,  ye  fade  with  night's  decease  ! 
Above  yon  ruby  rim  of  clouds  empearled — 
There,  through  the  rosy  flags  of  morn  unfurled — 

I  see  young  heroes  bring  Light's  '  Golden  Fleece.' 


The  End 
w.-D.  30 


Index 


Abbey,  Edwin,  122,  301 
Abershavv,  Jerry,  100 
Abiogenesis,  373 
Absolute  humour  :     see  Humour, 

absolute  and  relative 
Accent,  English  verse  governed  by, 

344 

Acceptance,  instinct  of,  14  ;  Hor- 
ace as  poet  of,  15 

Acton,  Lord, '  AyWin  '  and  '  Com- 
ing of  Love,'  place  given  by, 

5 
Actors,  two  types  of,  127 
Actresses,  English  prejudice  against, 

131 

Adams,  Davenport,  132 

Addison,    '  softness   of   touch '   in 

portraiture,  350 
'  ^neid,'  208 
i^schylus,    reference    to,   15,    45, 

324 
Agamemnon,  323 
Alabama,  Lowell  and,  295 
Aldworth,  286,  293 
Allen,  Grant,  207,  269,  309,  361 
Allingham,  William,  213 
America,    Watts-Dunton's    friends 

in,  295  ;    his  feelings  towards, 

297,  301 
Anacharsis,  384 
Anglomania      and      Anglophobia, 

Lowell's,  299 
Anglo-Saxon,    law-abidingness    of, 

309 
Animals,    man's    sympathy    with, 
instances,  82-86 


Anonymity  in  criticism,  209 

Anthropology,  14 

Apemantus,  250 

Appleton,  Prof.,  Watts-Dunton's 
reminiscences  of : — 
met  at  Bell  Scott's  and  Ros- 
setti's  ;  Hegel  on  the  brain  ; 
asks  Watts  to  write  for  '  Aca- 
demy,' 187  ;  wants  him  to 
pith  the  German  transcend- 
entalists  in  two  columns,  188  ; 
in  a  rage ;  Watts  explains  why 
he  has  gone  into  enemy's 
camp,  201  ;  a  Philistine,  202 

'Arda  Viraf,'  219 

'  Argonauts  of  the  New  Age,'  457 

Argyll,  Duchess  of :  see  Louise, 
Princess 

Argyll,  Duke  of,  291  :  see  Lome, 
Marquis  of 

Aristocrats,  in  '  Aylwin,'  351 

Aristotle,  unities  of,  18,  340,  341 

Armada,  423 

'  Armadale,'  348 

Arnold,  Sir  Edwin,  219,  228 

Arnold  Matthew,  '  The  Scholar 
Gypsy,'  Sorrow's  criticism  of, 
108  ;  Rhona  Boswell  and, 
114 

Artifice,  239 

Athenaeum,  1-4;  editor  of,  10; 
seventieth  birthday  of,  210- 
213  ;  influence  of,  452  ;  Watts- 
Dunton's  connection  with,  6 
173,188,  212-27,315,418,454 

Augustanism,  15,  16 

31 


460 


Index 


Austen,  Jane,  367 

Australia's  Mother,  4 

Avon,  River,  Watts-Dunton's  love 
for,  31 

'  Aylwin,'  Renascence  of  Wonder 
exemplified,  in,  2  ;  popularity 
of,  7  ;  principles  of  romantic 
art  expressed  in,  8 ;  Justin 
McCarthy's  opinion  of,  9 ; 
'Renascence  of  Wonder,'  ori- 
ginal title  of,  II  ;  attempted 
identification  of  characters  in, 
50,  88  ;  '  Veiled  Queen,'  dom- 
inating influence  of  author, 
56 ;  Cyril  Alyvi^in,  identifica- 
tion with  A.  E.  Watts,  87; 
genesis  of,  89  ;  nervous  phases 
in,  90  ;  D'Arcy,  identification 
with  Rossetti,  139,  140-45  ; 
description  of  Rossetti  in, 
165-169  ;  landslip  in,  270  ; 
Welsh  acceptation  of,  312- 
318;  Snowdon  ascent,  317; 
naivete  in  style  of,  328 ; 
youthfulness  of,  328  ;  rich- 
ness in  style,  330-38;  Galim- 
berti,  Mme,  criticism  of,  338  ; 
'  Athenaeum,"  canons  observed 
in,  338,  343  ;  begun  in  metre, 
342  ;  critical  analysis  of,  345- 
362  ;  '  softness  of  touch  '  in 
portraiture,  351 ;  love-passion, 
362 ;  Swinburne  on,  363  ; 
Meredith  on,  364 ;  Groome 
on,  367 ;  novel  of  the  two 
Bohemias,  368  ;  editions  of, 
368,  377 ;  enigmatic  nature 
of,  373  ;  Dr.  Nicoll  on,  375  ; 
Celtic  element  in,  378  ; 
Jacottet  on,  380;  two  hero- 
ines of,  363;  spirituality  of, 
372,  375,  378,  380;  inner 
meaning  of,  372-81  ;  heart- 
thought  of  contained  in  the 
'  Veiled  Queen,'  374  ;  '  Sat- 
day  Review  '  on,  377  ;   motive 


of,  389  ;  '  Arvon  '  edition, 
restoration  of  excised  pas- 
sages, 445-50  ;  modern  Sufism 
of,  454 ;  quotations  from,  330, 

331,  333,  336 

Aylwin,  Henry,  autobiographical 
element  in,  322,  356 ;  see 
'  Aylwin  ' ;    his  mother,  352  ; 

Aylwin  Philip  :  see  Watts,  J.  O. 

Aylwin,  Percy,  contrasted  with 
Henry  Aylwin,  361  ;  the  part 
he  plays  in  the  '  Coming  of 
Love,'40l-ll  ;  autobiographi- 
cal element  in — see  descrip- 
tion of  Swinburne  swimming, 
268 

Aylwinism,  Mr.  Balfour  and,  373, 
446,  450  ;  growth  of,  445 

Bacon,  43 

Badakhshan,  ruby  hills  of,  329 

Balfour,    A.    J.,    Aylwinism    and, 

373,  446,  450 
Ballads  old,  wonder  in,  16 
'  Ballads  and  Sonnets,'   Rossetti's, 

271 
Balliol,  Jowett's  dinner  parties  at, 

280 
Balzac,  18 

Banville,  his  '  Le  Baiser,'  133 
Bateson,  Mary,  her  paper  on  Crab 

House  Nunnery,  53 
Baudelaire,  135 
Baynes,  invites  Watts  to  write  for 

'  Encyc.  Brit.,'  256-7 
Beddoes,  126 

'  Bedouin  Child,  The,'  448. 
'  Belfast  News-Letter,'  4 
'  Belle     Dame     Sans    Merci,    La,' 

wonder  and  mystery  of,  19 
Bell,  Mackenzie  :  see  '  Shadow  on 

the  Window  Blind' 
'Bells,  The'  Watts  on,  119 
Benson,  A.  C,  his  monograph  on 

Rossetti,  138-40 
Berners,  Isopel,  364,  369 


Index 


461 


Betts  Bey,  85 

Bible,  The,  Watts-Dunton's  essay 
on,  228-41 

Bible  Rhythm,  238 

Biogenesis,  373 

Bird,  Dr.,  306 

Birdwood,  Sir  George,  409 

Bisset,  animal  trainer,  38 

Black,  William,  119  ;  Watts-Dun- 
ton's friendship  with,  185  ; 
their  resemblance  to  each 
other,  185  ;  an  amusing  mis- 
take, 186 

Blackstone,  309 

Blank  verse,  239 

Boar's  Hill,  282 

Bodleian,  282 

Body,  its  functions — humour  of,  387 

Bohemians,  in  '  Aylwin,'  351 

Bohemias,  Novel  of  the  Two, 
'  Aylwin '  as,  368 

Borrow,  George,  10  ;  method  of 
learning  languages,  58  ;  Watts- 
Dunton's  description  of,  95- 
106,  108-16 ;  characteristics 
of,  99-106,  368 ;  his  gypsy 
women  scenic  characters,  390 
Watts  -  Dunton's  reminiscences 
of:— 

his  »first  meeting  with,  95  ; 
his  shyness,  99  ;  Watts  attacks 
it ;  tries  Bamfylde  Moore 
Carew  ;  then  tries  beer,  the 
British  bruiser,  philology,  Am- 
brose Gwinett,  etc.,  100 ;  a 
stroll  in  Richmond  Park  ;  visit 
to  '  Bald-Faced  Stag  '  ;  Jerry 
Abershaw's  sword;  his  gigantic 
green  umbrella,  101-2  ;  tries 
Whittlesea  Mere ;  Borrow's 
surprise ;  vipers  of  Norm^ 
Cross ;    Romanies   and  vipers, 

104  ;    disclaims  taint  of  prin- 
ters' ink  ;    '  Who  are  you  ?  ' 

105  ;  an  East  Midlander  ;   the 
Shales  Mare,  106  ;  Cromer  sea 


best  for  swimming  ;  rainbow 
reflected  in  Ouse  and  Norfolk 
sand,  106 ;  goes  to  a  gypsy 
camp  ;  talks  about  Matthew 
Arnold's  'Scholar-Gypsy,'  108; 
resolves  to  try  it  on  gypsy 
woman ;  watches  hawk  and 
magpie,  109  ;  meets  Perpinia 
Boswell ; '  the  popalated  gypsy 
of  Codling  Gap,'  no  ;  Rhona 
Boswell,  girl  of  the  dragon 
flies  ;  the  sick  chavo  ;  forbids 
Pep  to  smoke,  112;  descrip- 
tion of  Rhona,  113  ;  the 
Devil's  Needles  ;  reads  Glan- 
ville's  story  ;  Rhona  bored  by 
Arnold,  114;  hatred  of  to- 
bacco, 115  ;  last  sight  of 
Borrow  on  Waterloo  Bridge, 
115  ;  sonnet  on,  n6 
Boswell,  Perpinia,  1 1 0-12 
Boswell,  Rhona,  her  prototype, 
first  meeting  with,  63  ;  de- 
scription from  '  Aylwin,'  64  ; 
East  Anglia  and  '  Cowslip 
Land '  linked  by,  72,  108  ; 
description  of  in  unpublished 
romance,  1 10-15  ;  courage- 
ous nature  of,  366,  406  ;  pre- 
sented dramatically,  356  ; 
type  of  English  heroine,  366  ; 
Tennyson's '  Maud '  compared 
with,  413  ;  George  Meredith 
on,  418  ;  humour  of,  421  ; 
'  Rhona's  Letter,'  402-5  ; 
rhyme-pattern  of,  419 
Boswell,  Sylvester,  no 
Bounty,  mutineers  of,  310 
Boxhill,  Meredith's  house,  at,  283 
'Breathof  Avon  :To  English-speak- 
ing Pilgrims  on  Shakespeare's 
Birthday,'  31 
British  Association,  373,  445,  450 
Bronte,  Charlotte  and  Emily,  Na- 
ture instinct  of,  97  ;  novels  of, 
of,  346,  367 


462 


Index 


Brown,  Charles  Brockden,  308 

Brown,  Lucy  Madox  :  see  Rossetti, 
Mrs.  W.  M. 

Brown,  Madox,  10,  12,  35,  170  ; 
his  Eisteddfod,  136  ;  portrait 
of,  story  connected  with,  274 

Brown,  Oliver  Madox,  274-6 

Browning,    Robert,  4  ;  compared 
with  Victor  Hugo,  126,  144 
Watts-Dunton's      reminiscences 
of  :— 

chaffs  him  in  '  Athenaeum ' ; 
chided  by  Swinburne,  222, 
223-27  ;  sees  him  at  Royal 
Academy  private  view  ;  Lowell 
advises  him  to  slip  away  ;  bets 
he  will  be  more  cordial  than 
ever  ;  Lowell  astonished  at  his 
magnanimity,  222-23  ;  the  re- 
view in  question,  '  Ferishtah's 
Fancies,'  223-26 

Brynhild,  365 

'  Brvnhild    on    Sigurd's    Funeral 
'Pyre,'  366 

Buchanan,  Robert,  his  attacks  on 
Rossetti,  145-6  ;  Watts-Dun- 
ton's impeachment  of,  148 

'  Buddhaghosha,'  Parables  of,  218 

Buddhism,  14 

Bull,  John,  224,  299,  300 

Burbage,  124 

Burgin,  G.  B.,  his  interview  with 
Watts-Dunton,  205 

Burns,  Robert,  reference  to,  38 

Butler,  Bishop,  share  in  Renascence 
of  Wonder,  22 

'  B.V.,'  161 

Byron,  307 

'Byles  the  Butcher,'  215-16 

'  By  the  North  Sea,'  271 

Caine,    Hall,    Rossetti    '  Recollec- 
tions '  by,  150,  1 5 1-4 
'  Cambridge  Chronicle,'  5 1 
Campbell,  Lady  Archibald,  open- 
air  plays  organized  by,  132 


Carew,  Bamfylde  Moore,  99 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  River  Ouse, 
libellous  description  of,  27, 
28  ;  his  heresy  of  '  work,"  68- 
71  ;  '  Frederick  the  Great,' 
Watts-Dunton  on,  192 

Carr,  Comyns,  contributor  to 
'  Examiner,'  184 

Casket  Lighthouse,  girl  in — poems 
by  Swinburne  and  Watts- 
Dunton,  413 

'  Catriona,'  217 

'  Caught  in  the  Ebbing  Tide,'  82 

Cavendish,  Ada,  118 

'  Celebrities  of  the  Century,' 
memoir  of  Watts-Dunton  in,  4 

Celtic  temper,  'Aylwin,'  31^-15; 

378 

Cervantes,  Watts-Dunton  on,  97, 
246-52 

Chalk  Farm,  Westland  Marston's 
theatrical  reunions  at,  117; 
Parnassians  at,  135 

'  Chambers's  Cyclopaedia  of  Eng- 
lish Literature,'  Watts-Dun- 
ton's '  Renascence  of  Won- 
der '  article,  13,  20,  25; 
Douglas  James,  article  on 
Watts-Dunton  by,  393 

'  Chambers's  Encyclopsedia,'  ar- 
ticle on  Watts-Dunton  in,  i  ; 
Watts-Dunton's  contributions 
to,  2 ;  Sonnet,  Watts-Dun- 
ton's   essay    on,    205 

Chamisso,  119 

Channel  Islands,  \isit  of  Swinburne 
and  Watts-Dunton  to,  268-9 

Chapman,  George,  267 

Chaucer,  his  place  in  English  poe- 
try, 15,  43,  294,  394 

Chelsea,  Rossetti's  residence  at, 
137,  155,  161,  162,  165 

Cheyne  Walk,  16  :     see  Chelsea 

'  Children  of  the  Open    Air,'    96, 

97,98 
Children,  Rossetti  on,  168 


Index 


463 


Chinese  Cabinet,  Rossetti's,  267 

*  Christabel,'  wonder  and  mystery 
of,  19 ;    quotation  from,  20 

Christmas,  '  The  Pines '  and,  93  ; 
Rosicrucian,  94 

"  Christmas  at  the  'Mermaid,'  "  32; 
metrical  construction  of,  422  ; 
Watts-Dunton's     preface     to 
sixth  edition,  424  ;  written  at 
Stratford-on-Avon,  423;  open- 
ing chorus,  423  ;   description 
of     Shakespeare's     return     to 
Stratford-on-Avon,  425-26 
quotations     from,     423  -  40 
chief     leit-motiv     of,     436 
Wassail    Chorus,   438  ;    '  The 
Golden      Skeleton,'      428-34, 
436-37  ;    Raleigh  and  the  Ar- 
mada,  434-36  ;    letter   from 
Thomas  Hardy  about,  440-41 

Circumstance,  as  villain,  125  ;  as 
humourist,  248  ;  as  harle- 
quin, 387 

Civilization,  definition  of,  71 

Climate,  English,  Lowell  on,  300 

Cole,  Herbert,  440 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  19,  20,  38  ;  Watts- 
Dunton's   poetry,  kinship   to, 

417^   419  ;    324'  338  ;    on 

accent  in  verse,  344 

Coleridge,  Watts-Dunton's  Son- 
net to,  417  ;  Meredith's  opin- 
ion of  same,  417 

Collaboration,  415 

Collier,  Jeremy,  259 

Collier,  John  P.,  55 

Collins,  Wilkie,  fiction  of,  348,  367 

Colonies,  Watts-Dunton  on,  273 

Colvin,  Sidney,  216 

Comedy  and  Farce,  distinction 
between,  258 ;  of  repartee, 
259 

'  Coming  of  Love,  The'  :  Renas- 
cence of  Wonder  exemplified 
in,  2  ;  popularity  of,  7  ;  prin- 
ciples  of   Romantic   Art   ex- 


plained in,  8  ;  humour  in,  24  ; 
locality  of  Gypsy  Song,  33  ; 
publication  of,  178,  389 ;  his- 
tory of,  395  ;  inner  meaning 
of,  400  ;  form  of,  411  ;  open- 
ing sonnets,  incident  connect- 
ed with,  413  ;  quotations  from, 
402-11,    450;     references  to, 

5,  361,  376 

Common  Prayer,  Book  of,  231 

Congreve,  his  wit  and  humour, 
258-60 

Convincement,  artistic,  325 

Coombe,  open-air  plays  at,  132 

Cooper,  Fenimore,  306 

Corkran,  Miss,  118,  278 

Cosmic  humour,  204 

Cosmogony,  New,  9  ;  see  Renas- 
cence of  Wonder,  373 

Cosmos,  joke  of,  386 

Cowper,  W.,  38 

Cowslip  Country,  Watts-Dunton's 
association  with,  27,  32 

Craigie,  Mrs.,  intellectual  energy 
of  the  provinces  asserted  by, 

.  .5°'  325 
Criticism,  anonymity  in,  209,  210  ; 

new  ideas  in,  344 

Cromer,  106 ;  Swinburne  and 
Watts-Dunton  visit,  270 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  Slepe  Hall,  sup- 
posed residence  at,  35 

Cruikshank,  387 

'  Cyclopaedia  of  English  Litera- 
ture ' :  see '  Chambers's  Cyclo- 
paedia ' 

Dana,  371 

Dante,  208,  293,  412,  418 

D'Arcy  (see  Rossetti,  D.  G.),  Ros- 

setti  as  prototype  of,  139,  140- 

45,  165,  336 
Darwin,  Charles,  52,  97,  373,  455 
Darwin,  Erasmus,  455 
Death,  Pain  and,  173 
'  Debats,  Journal  des,'  27,  374 


464 


Index 


De  Castro,  141-43,  166  :  see 
Howell,  C.  A. 

Decorative  renascence,  16 

Deerfoot,  the  Indian,  race  won  at 
Cambridge  by,  65 

Defoe,  307,  367 

De  Lisle,  Leconte,  124 

'  Demon  Lover,  The,'  wonder  and 
mystery  expressed  by,  19 

Denouement  in  fiction,  dialogue 
and,  346 

De  Quincey,  197,  340 

Destiny,  in  drama,  125 

Devil's  Needles,  113 

Dialect  in  poetry — Meredith  on 
Rhona  Boswell's  letters,  418 

Dialogue  in  fiction,  346 

Dichtung,  Wahrheit  and,  in  '  Ayl- 
win,'  50 

Dickens,  Lowell's  strictures  on, 
295,  3^5  5  hardness  of  touch  in 
portraiture,  350,  367,  387 

'  Dickens  returns  on  Christmas 
Day,'  93 

Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  on  the 
sibilant  in  poetry,  287  ;  sub- 
stance   and    form   in    poetry, 

341 

Disraeli,  '  softness  of  touch  '  in  St. 
Aldegonde,  351;  353 

'  Divina  Commedia,'  208 

'  Dr.  Jekyirand  Mr.  Hyde,'  Watts- 
Dunton's  criticism  of,  218 

Dogs,  telepathy  and,  82-6 

Doppelganger  idea,  30 

Drama,  surprise  in,  120 ;  famous 
actors  and  actresses,  117; 
table  talk  about  '  The  Bells ' 
and  '  Rip  Van  Winkle,'  119  : 
see  Actors,  Actresses,  Burbage, 
Garrick,  Hugo,  Congreve, 
Kean,  Marlowe,  Banville,  Rob- 
son,  Shakspeare,  Vanbrugh, 
Webster,  Wycherley,  Ford, 
Comedy  and  Farce,  yEschy- 
lus,      Sophocles,      Etheredge, 


Wells,  Cyril  Tourneur,  Got, 
Hamlet 

Dramatic  method  in  fiction,  346 

Drayton,  438 

Dryden,  the  first  great  poet  of 
'  acceptance,'  25 

Du  Chaillu,  52 

Duffield,  contributor  ^to  '  Exami- 
ner,' 184 

Du  Maurier,  301 

Dumas,  346 

Dunn,  Treffry,  De  Castro's  conduct 
to,  143 ;  Watts-Dunton's 
portrait  painted  by,  171  ; 
drav^^ngs  by,  161,  277 

Dunton,  family  of,  53 

Dyer,  George,  St.  Ives  and,  40,  41 

East  Anglia,  72-85  ;   road-girls  in, 

390 
Eastbourne,        Swinburne        and 

Watts  visit,  270 

East  Enders,  in  '  Aylwin,'  351 

Eliot,  George,  372 

Emerson,  8 

'  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,'  Watts- 
Dunton's  connection  with,  i, 
2,  4,  6,  205,  256 ;  his  Essay  on 
Poetry,  340,  393  ;  on  Van- 
brugh, 258 

'Encyclopaedia,  Chambers's ' : 
see  '  Chambers's  Encyc' 

England,  love  of  the  wind  and,  370 

'  English  Illustrated  Magazine,' 
287 

Epic  method  in  fiction,  346 

Erckmann-Chatrian,  'Juif  Polonais ' 
by,  119 

Erskine,  his  pet  leeches,  39 

'  Esmond,'  328 

Etheredge,  259 

'  Examiner,'  contributors  to,  184  ; 
Watts-Dunton's  articles  in, 
184 

'  Fairy  Glen,'  315  ^ 


Index 


465 


*  Faith    and    Love,'    Wilderspin's 

picture,  331 
Falstaff,  382  -'^ 

Farce,  comedy  and,  distinction  be- 
tween, 258 
Farringford,  286 
'  Father     Christmas     in     Famine 

Street,'  92 
Fens,  the,  description  of,  62 
Feridun,  225 

'  Ferishtah's  Fancies,'  Watts's  re- 
view of,  223 

Ferridoddin,  447 

Fiction,  genius  at  work  in,  7 ; 
importance  of,  208  ;  beauty  in, 
221  ;  atmosphere  in,  308 ; 
'  artistic  convincement '  in, 
325  ;  methods  of,  345  et  seq.  ; 
epic  and  dramatic  methods  in, 
346  ;  '  softness  of  touch  '  in, 
349  et  seq. 

Fielding,  305,  321,  347;  'softness 
of  touch  '  in,  350,  367 

Findlay,  52 

FitzGerald,  Edward,  79 ;  Watts- 
Dunton's  Omarian  poems,  80-1 

Flaubert,  89 

'Fleshly  School  of  Poetry,'  145- 
46  '■ 

'  Florilegium  Latinum,'  147 

Fonblanque,  Albany,  185 

Ford,  spirit  of  wonder  in,  16 

'  Fortnightly  Review,'  442 

Foxglove  bells,  fairies  and,  74 

France,  Anatole,  irony  of,  204 

France,  dread  of  the  wind,  370 

Fraser,  the  brothers,  water-colour 
drawings  by,  33 

Freedom,  modern,  71 

French  Revolution,  its  relation  to 
the  Renascence  of  Wonder,  13 

Frend,  William,  revolt  against 
English  Church,  40 

Friendship,  passion  of,  146-48 ; 
sonnet    (Dr.    Gordon    Hake), 

444 


Gainsborough,  '  softness  of  touch  ' 

in  portraits  by,  350 
Galimberti,  Alice,  her  appreciation 

of  Watts-Dunton's  work,  204, 

338,  339.  347 

'  Garden  of  Sleep,'  270 

Garnett,  Dr.,  his  views  on  '  Renas- 
cence of  Wonder,'  1 1  ;  contri- 
butions to  '  Examiner,'  184 

Garrick,  David,  127 

Gaskell,  Mrs.,  softness    of   touch, 

350 
Gautier,  Theophile,  135,  136 

Genius,  wear  and  tear  of,  175 

'  Gentle  Art  of  Making  Enemies,' 

353 
German  romanticists,  the  terrible- 
grotesque  in,  126 
Gestaltung,  Goethe  on,  398 
Ghost,  laughter  of,  387 
Glamour,  Celtic,  313-15  ;  37^ 
Glyn,  Miss,  118 

God  as  beneficent  Showman,  387 
Goethe,  his  critical  system,  Watts- 
Dunton's    treatise    on  Poetry 
compared  to,  257  ;   his  theory 
as    to    enigmatic    nature    of 
great     works     of     art,      373, 
394  ;  Gestaltung  in  art,  398 
'  Golden  Hand,  The,'  73 
Gordon,    Lady    Mary,  Swinburne 
and  Watts-Dunton's  visits  to, 
270 
Gorgios  and  Romanies,  389 
Gosse,    Edmund,     contributes    to 
'Examiner,'    184;     his   study 
of  Etheredge,  259 
Got,  M.,  Watts  on  his  acting  in 

'  Le  Roi  s' Amuse,'  127 
Grande  dame,  Aylwin's  mother  as 

type  of,  352 
Grant,  James,  367 
'  Graphic,'  100 
'  Grave  by  the  Sea,  A,'  157 
'  Great  Thoughts,'  61 
Greek  mind,  the,  4.^ 


466 


Index 


Green  Dining  Room  at  i6  Cheyne 
Walk,  i6i 

Groome,  F.  H.,  account  of  J.  K. 
Watts  by,  50  ;  intimacy  with 
Watts-Dunton,  68 ;  Watts- 
Dunton  and  the  gypsies,  72  ; 
Watts-Dunton's  obituary  no- 
tice of,  79  ;  on  gypsies  in 
'  Aylwin,'  35!  ;  '  Kricgspiel,' 
364  ;  his  review  of  '  Aylwin,' 
367^  372 ;  gypsy  humour- 
anecdote,  420. 

Grotesque,  the  terrible-,  in  art, 
126 

Gryengroes :   see  Gypsies 

'  Gudgeon,  Mrs.,'  humour  of,  382- 
84,  388;  prototype  of,  383 

Guide  to  Fiction,  374 

Gwinett,  Ambrose,  99 

Gwynn,  David,  423 

'  Gypsy  Folk-tales,'  420 

'  Gypsy  Heather,'  75 

Gypsies,  Watts-Dunton's  acquaint- 
ance with,  61,67  ;  superstitions 
of,  loi  ;  '  prepotency  of 
transmission  '  of,  362  ;  in 
'  Aylwin,'  Groome  on,  367  ; 
'  Aylwin,'  gypsy  characters  of, 
368  ;  '  Times '  on,  370 ;  superi- 
ority of  gypsy  women  to  men, 
392  ;  characteristics  of  same, 
390  ;  humour  of,  420 

Hacker,  Arthur,  A.R.A.,  illustra- 
tion of '  John  the  Pilgrim  '  by. 

Haggard,  Rider,  telepathy  and 
dumb  animals,  82  ;  Watts- 
Dunton's  influence  on  writings 
of,  415 

Hake,  Gordon,  12;  'Aylwin,' 
connection  with,  90 ;  physician 
to  Rossetti,  90-91  ;  physician 
to  Lady  Ripon,  90  ;  Borrow 
and  Watts-Dunton  introduced 
by,  95  ;  poems  connected  with 


Watts-Dunton,  92 ;  '  The 
New  Day '  (see  that  title) 

Hake,  Thomas  St.  E.,  author's 
grat  tide  for  assistance  from, 
10;  II,  12;  'Notes  and 
Queries,'  papers  on  '  Aylwin  ' 
by,  50 ;  J.  O.  Watts  identi- 
fied with  Philip  Aylwin  by,  51, 
56;  account  of  ^.  O.  Watts 
by,  57 ;  A.  E.  Watts,  descrip- 
tion by,  88 ;  '  Aylwin,' 
genesis  of,  account  by,  89 ; 
Hurstcote  and  Cheyne  Walk 
'  green  dining  room,'  identified 
by,  161  ;  William  Morris, 
facts  concerning,  given  by,  171 

Hallam,  Henry,  281 

'  Hamlet,'  293 

Hammond,  John,  40-1 

Hardy,  Thomas,  27,  186,  325  ; 
letter  from,  440-41 

'  Harper's  Magazine,'  122,  442 

Harte,  Bret,  301  ;  Watts-Dunton's 
estimate  of,  302-11  ;  histrionic 
gifts,  302  ;  ;  meeting]  with  ; 
drive  -ound  London  music- 
halls,  303  ;  '  Holborn,'  '  Ox- 
ford '  ;  Evans's  supper-rooms  ; 
Paddy  Green  ;  meets  him 
again  at  breakfast  ;  a  fine  actor 
lost,  303 

Hartley,  on  sexual  shame,  255 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  3015 

'  Haymaking  Song,'  34 

Hazlitt,  W.,  261 

Hegel,  187 

Heine,  232 

Hemingford  Grey,  33 

Hemingford  Meadow,  description, 

32,33 
Heminge  and  Condell,  293 
Henley,  W,  E.,  284,  322 
Herder,  19 

Herkomer,  Prof.  H.,  100 
Heme,  the  '  ScoUard,'  402,  405 
Herodotus,  340 


Index 


467 


Hero,  English  type  of,  365 

"  Hero,  New,'  The,  287 

Heroines,  '  Aylwin,'  a  story  with 
two,  363 

Hesiod,  221,  394 

Heywood,  439 

Higginson,  Col.,  301 

Hodgson,  Earl,  30 

Homer,   177,  208,    323 

Hood,  Thomas,  i 

Hopkins,  John,  233 

Home,  R.  H.,  challenge  to  Swin- 
burne and  Watts-Dunton,  269 

Hotei,  Japanese  god  of  content- 
ment, 385 

Houssaye,  Arsene,  218 

Houghton,  Lord,  183 

Howell,  Charles  Augustus,  proto- 
type of  De  Castro,  q.v. 

Hueffer,  Dr.  F.,  Wagner  exponent, 
89;  Watts-Dunton's  intimacy 
with,  89 

Hueffer,  Ford  Madox,  testimony  to 
the  friendship  of  Watts-Dun- 
ton and  Rossetti,  154 

Hugo,  Victor,  '  Le  Roi  s'Amuse,' 
123-30  ;  Watts-Dunton's  son- 
net to,  129;  dread  of  the 
wind, 370 

Humboldt,  45 

Hunt,  Rev.  J.,  49 

Humour,  Watts-Dunton's  defini- 
tion of,  196 ;  absolute  and 
relative,  16,  23,  384  ;  cosmic, 
204 ;  renascence  of  wonder 
in,  242  ;  metaphysical  mean- 
ing of,  246-55 

Hunt,  Holman,  19 

Hunt,  Leigh,  261 

'  Idler,'  interview  with  Watts- 
Dunton  in,  205 

'  Illuminated  Magazine,'  55 

Imagination,  lyrical  and  dramatic, 
in  '  Aylwin,'  356-61 

Imaginative  power  in '  Aylwin,'  345 


Imaginative    representation,    208, 

398. 
Imperialism,  273 

Incongruity,  basis  of  humour,  385 
Indecency,  definition  of,  255 
Ingelow,  Jean,  369 
Interviewing,  skit  on,  263 
Irony,  Anatole  France's,  204 ;    in 

human  intercourse,  251 
Irving,  Sir  Henry,  118 
Isis,  332 

Isle    of    Wight,    Swinburne     and 
Watts-Dunton  visit,  270 

Jacottet,  Henri,  347,  374 

'  Jane  Eyre,'  342,  345 

Japanese,  race  development  of,  14 

Jaques,  250 

Jefferson,  Joseph,  121 

Jeffrey,  Francis,  2 

Jenyns,  Soame,  387 

Jerrold,  Douglas,  1,53,  289 

Jessop,  Dr.,  '  Ups  and  Downs  of  an 

Old    Nunnery,'    reference    to 

Dunton  family  in,  53 
Jewish-Arabian    Renascence  :     see 

Renascence 
'  John  the  Pilgrim,'  416 
Johnson,  Dr.,  326 
JoUy-doggism,  199 
Jones,  Sir  Edward  Burne,  180 
Jonson,  Ben,  423 
'  Joseph  and  His  Brethren,'  55 
Joubert,  221 

'  Journal  des  Debats,'  27,  374 
Journalism,  mendacious,  263 
Jowett,  Benjamin,  Watts-Dunton's 

friendship    with,     279 ;      pen 

portrait   of,    280  ;    see  '  Last 

Walk  from  Boar's  Hill,'  282 
'  Jubilee  Greeting  at  Spithead  to 

the  Men  of  Greater  Britain,' 

'  Juif-Polonais,'  119 

Kaf,  mountains  of,  286,  453 


468 


Index 


Kean,  Edmund,  121 

Keats,  John,  spirit  of  wonder  in 
poetry  of,  19,  293  ;  richness  of 
style,  329 

Kelmscott  Manor,  Rossetti's  resi- 
dence at,  155,  161,  162,  164, 
165  ;  identification  of  Hurst- 
cote  with,  170 ;  causeries  at, 

173 

Kelmscott  Press,  178,  181 

Kernahan,  Coulson,  56,  413 

Kew,  Lord,  Thackeray's,  351 

Keynes,  T.,  267 

'  Kidnapped,'  Watts-Dunton's  re- 
view of,  215  ;  letter  from  Ste- 
venson concerning  same,  216 

'  King  Lear,'  126,  323 

Kisagotami,  456 

'  Kissing  the  May  Buds,'  406 

Knight,  Joseph,  acquaintance  with 
J.  O.  Watts,  60  ;  as  dramatic 
critic,  122,  123 

Knowles,  James,  290  :  see  also 
'  Nineteenth  Century  ' 

'  Kriegspiel,'  364 

'  Kubla  Khan,'  wonder  and  mys- 
tery of,  19,  20 

Kymric  note,  in  '  Aylwin,'  313-15 

Lamb,  Charles,  41,  59,  250,  387 

Lancing,  Swinburne  and  Watts 
visit,  270 

Landor,  271,  352 

Landslips  at  Cromer,  270 

Lane,  John,  wishes  to  compile 
bibliography  of  Watts-Dun- 
ton's articles,  6  ;  publication  of 
'  Coming  of  Love,'  396 ;  440 

Lang,  Andrew,  critical  work  of, 
207;  415 

Language,  inadequacy  of,  323 

'  Language  of  Nature's  Fragrancy,' 
269 

Laocoon,  323 

'  Last  Walk  from  Boar's  Hill,  The,' 
282 


Latham,  Dr.  R.  G.,  acquaintance 
with  J.  O.  Watts,  58 

'  Lavengro,'  368 

'  Lear,  King,'  126,  323 

Le  Gallienne,  R.,  i 

Leslie,  G.  D.,  301 

Leutzner,  Dr.  Karl,  205 

Lever,  367 

Lewis,  Leopold,  119 

Litany,  231 

'  Literature,'  132,  244,  245 

'  Literature  of  power,'  208 

'  Liverpool  Mercury,'  article  on 
'  Aylwin,'  12 

Livingstone,  J.  K.  Watts's  friend- 
ship with,  52 

London,  its  low-class  women, 
humourous  pictures  of,  383 

Lome,  Marquis  of,  453 :  see 
Argyll,  Duke  of 

'  Lothair,'  353 

Louise,  Princess  (Duchess  of 
Argyll),  Rossetti's  alleged  rude- 
ness to,  156. 

'  Love  brings  Warning  of  Natura 
Maligna,'  414 

'  Love  for  Love,'  258,  260 

Love-passion  in  '  Aylwin,'  362 

'  Loves  of  the  Plants,'  455 

'  Loves  of  the  Triangles,'  455 

Lovell,  Sinfi,  Nature  instinct  of, 
97,  107 ;  true  representation 
of  gypsy  girl,  317  ;  Meredith's 
praise  of,  363  ;  Groome 
on,  364 ;  Richard  Whiteing 
on,  364  ;  dominating  character 
of,  363,  365;  prototype  of, 
368-9 

Low,  Sidney,  244 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  222 ;  Watts- 
Dunton's  critical  work,  appre- 
ciation of,  399 ;  sonnet  on 
the  death  of,  300 
Watts-Dunton's  reminiscences 
of  :— 
meets    him    at   dinner,    295  ; 


Index 


469 


he  attacks  England ;  directs 
diatribe  at  Watts ;  he  retorts ; 
a  verbal  duel,  296 ;  recogni- 
tion ;  cites  Watts's  first  ar- 
ticle, 298 ;  his  anglophobia 
turns  into  anglomania,  299 ; 
likes  English  climate,  300 

Lowestoft,  106 

Luther,  his  pigs,  39 

'  Lycidas,*  3 

Lyeil  (geologist),  45  ;  J.  K.  Watts's 
acquaintance  with,  50,  52 

Lytton,  Bulwer,  novels  of,  349 

McCarthy,  Justin,  '  Aylwin,'  criti- 
cism of,  9 ;  hospitality  of, 
186 

MacCoU,  Norman,  invites  Watts- 
Dunton  to  write  for 
'Athenaeum,'  188,  243,  418 

Macrocosm,  27 

'Madame  Bovary,'  89 

'  Magazine  of  Art,'  290 

'  Man  and  Wife,'  348 

Manchester  School,  273 

*  Mankind,  the  Great  Man,'  46 

Manns,  August,  Crystal  Palace 
Concerts  conducted  by,  89 

Manu,  219 

'  M.A.P.,'  278 

Mapes,  Walter,  388 

Marlowe,  Christopher,  spirit  of 
wonder  in  poetry  of,  16,  329  ; 
friend  of,  426 

Marot,  Clement,  229 

Marryat,  367 

Marshall,  John,  medical  adviser  to 
Rossetti,  152 

Marston,    Dr.    Westland : — 

symposia  at  Chalk  Farm  ; 
famous  actors  and  actresses, 
117;  table  talk  about  'The 
Bells '  and  '  Rip  Van  Winkle,' 
119;  on  staff  of  'Examiner,' 
184  ;  the  sub-Swinburnians  at 
the    Marston  mornings ;    the 


divine  Theophile  ;   the  Gallic 
Parnassus,  136 

Marston,  Philip  Bourke,  Louise 
Chandler  Moulton's  memoir 
of,  4,  10,  157  ;  Oliver  Madox 
Brown's  friendship  with, 
276 

Matter,  dead,  411,  452 

Meredith,  George,  6 ;  Watts- 
Dunton's  friendship  with, 
283,  284 ;  literary  style  of, 
325,  328 ;  Watts-Dunton's 
Sonnet  on  Coleridge,  opinion 
of,  417  ;  '  Coming  of  Love,' 
opinion   of,   418 

'  Meredith,  '  To  George,'  Sonnet, 
284 

Meredithians,  mock,  325 

'  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,'  293 

Metrical  art,  new,  343,  344, 
412 

Microcosm  of  St.  Ives,  26-7  ; 
characters  in  the,  50-60 

Middleton,  Dr.  J.  H.,  his  friend- 
ship with  Morris,  172  ;  '  En- 
cyclopaedia Britannica,'  col- 
laboration in,  173 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  education  of, 
Watts-Dunton's  early  educa- 
tion compared  with,  50 

Miller,  Joaquin,  301 

Milton,  John,  period  of  wonder  in 
poetry  ended  with,  25  ;  293 

Minto,  Prof.,  10  ;  Watts-Dunton's 
connection  with   '  Examiner  ' 
and,  184-88,256 
Watts-Dunton's      reminiscences 
of:— 

neighbours  in  Danes  Inn  ; 
editing  '  Examiner  ' ;  secures 
Watts  ;  first  article  appears ; 
Bell  Scott's  party ;  Scott 
wants  to  know  name  of  new 
writer,  184 ;  Watts  slates 
himself,  185  ;  Minto's  Monday 
evening  symposia,  185 


47° 


Index 


Moliere,  126 

Montaigne — value    of    leisure — 
quotation,  68 

Morley,  John,  27 

Murchison,  45,  50,  52 

Morris,  Mrs.,  Rossetti's  picture 
painted  from,  172  ;  reference 
to,  179,  180 

Morris,  William,  '  Quarterly  Re- 
view' article  on,  16  ;  '  Cham- 
bers's Cyclopaedia,'  article  on, 
173  ;  '  Odyssey,'  his  transla- 
tion of,  176 ;  Watts-Dun- 
ton's  criticism  of  poems  by, 
176;  intimacy  with  Watts- 
Dunton,  170;  Watts-Dun- 
ton's  monograph  on,  170,  173- 
77  ;  angling,  his  passion  for, 
171;  indifference  to  criticism, 
173  ;  anecdotes  of,  179-82  ; 
generosity  of,  179;  death  of, 
178-79 
VVatts-Dunton's  reminiscences 
of  :— 

Marston  mornings  at  Chall; 
Farm;  'nosey  Latin,'  136; 
Wednesday  evenings  at  Danes 
Inn  ;  Swinburne,  Watts,  Mar- 
ston, Madox  Brown  and  Mor- 
ris, 170;  at  Kelmscott,  170; 
passion  for  angling,  171  ; 
snoring  of  young  owls,  171  ; 
causeries  at  Kelmscott,  173  ; 
the  only  reviews  he  read,  173  ; 
the  little  carpetless  room,  175  ; 
writes  750  lines  in  twelve 
hours,  176;  the  crib  on  his 
desk,  177  ;  offers  to  bring  out 
an  edition-de-luxe  of  Watts's 
poems  ;  gets  subscribers ;  a 
magnificent  royalty,  179  ;  pre- 
sentation copies  ;  extravagant 
generosity  ;  '  All  right,  old 
chap  ' ;  '  Ned  Jones  and  I,' 
180;  'Algernon  pay  ^10  for 
a  book  of  mine  !  ' ,    181  ;  dis- 


gusted with  Stead,  the  mu- 
sic hall  singer  and  dancer ; 
'damned  tomfoolery,'  181 

Moulton,  Louise  Chandler,  4,  301 

'  Much  Ado  about  Nothing,'  260 

Murchison,  45,  50,  52 

Muret,  Maurice,  374,  400 

Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  291 

'  Natura  Benigna,'  the  keynote  of 

'  Aylwinism,'  411 
Natura  Maligna,  408  ;   Sir  George 

Birdwood  on,  409 
'  Nature's  Fountain  of  Youth,'  268 
Nature,  '  Poetic  Interpretation  of,' 

204  ;    as  humourist,  386 
Nature-worship,  Shintoism,  14,  97 
Nature  -  worshippers,    Dictionary 

for,  68 
Nelson,  365 
'  New  Day,  The,'  92,  107,  162,  312, 

396,443 

Nicol,  John,  202 

Nicoll,  Dr.  Robertson,  5  ;  collection 
of  Watts-Dunton's  essays  sug- 
gested by,  6,  22  ;  '  Signifi- 
cance of  '  Aylwin,'  essay  by, 
372  ;  Renascence  of  Wonder 
in    Religion,    articles    on,    22, 

.  ^75,  445 

Neilson,  Lilian  Adelaide,  Watts- 
Dunton's  appreciation  of,  117 

Night  and  Morning,'  349 

'  Nineteenth  Century,'  290,  291, 
442 

Niobe,  323 

Niton  Bay,  270 

'  Nocrcs  Ambrosianrc,  Comedy  of,' 
Watts-Dunton's  review  of, 
190-201  ;  Lowell's  opinion  of 
same,  298 

Norman  Cross,  vipers  of,  104 

Norris,  H.  E.,  '  History  of  St. 
Ives  '  (reference  to),  25,  40, 
51  ;  River  Ouse,  praise  of,  28, 
29,30 


Index 


471 


North,  Christopher :    see   Wilson, 

Professor 
'  Northern  Farmer,'  387 
Norwich  horse  fair,  106 
'  Notes  and  Queries,'  50,  51,  56,  57, 

88,  161,  171,  316,  317,  318 
Novalis,  247,  455 
Novel,    importance    of,     208  ;    of 

manners,  308 
Novelists,   absurdities   of  popular, 

367 
Nutt,  Alfred,  6 

'  Octopus  of  the  Golden  Isles,'  148 
'  Odyssey,'  Morris's  translation  of, 

176;  208 ;_  341 
CEdipus  Egyptiacus,  226 
Omar,  Caliph,  69 
Omar  Khayyam  Club,  81 
Omarian  Poems,  Watts-Dunton's, 

78,  79,  80,  81 
'  Omnipotence  of  Love,'  the,  287 
'  Orchard,  The,'  Niton  Bay,   270 
O'Shaughnessy,  Arthur,  '  Marston 
Nights,'  presence  at,  136;  161 
Ouse,  River,  poems  on,  28,  29,  30 
Oxford  Union,  Rossetti's  lost  fres- 
coes at,  162 

Pain  and  Death,  173 

Palgrave,  F.  T.,  291 

'  Pall  Mall  Gazette,'  245 

Palmerston,  295 

Pamphlet  literature,  99 

*  Pandora':  see  Rossetti's,  21 

'  Pantheism  ' :  Dr.  Hunt's  book,  49 

Parable  poetry,  224 

Paradis  arlificiel,  248,  388 

Parsimony,  verbal,  418 

Partridge,  Mrs.,  382 

Patrick,  Dr.,  5 

Penn,  William,  St.  Ives,  his  death 

there,  41 
'  Peter  Schlemihl,'  119 
Petit  Bot  Bay,  31,  268 
Philistia,  romance  carried  into,  327 


'  Piccadilly,'  Watts-Dunton  writes 
for,  301,353 

'  Pickwick,'  trial  scene  in,  387 

'  Pines,  The,'  residence  of  Watts- 
Dunton  and  Swinburne,  262 
et  seq.  ;   works  of  art  at,  266 

Plato,  341 

Plot-ridden,  '  Aylwin  '  not,  348 

Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  on  '  homely ' 
note  in  fiction,  325  ;  '  The 
Raven,'  originality  of,  419 

Poetic  prose :  see  Prose 

TTot^criS,  341 

TTot 77x1^9,  340 

Poetry,  wonder  element  in,  15, 
25  ;  English  Romantic  School, 
17  ;  humour  in,  question 
of,  24 ;  parables  in,  224 ; 
blank  verse,  239 ;  Watts- 
Dunton's  Essay  on,  340,  393  ; 
Herodotus,  Plato,  Aristotle, 
Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  and 
Bacon  on,  340,  341  ;  rhetoric 
and,  340 ;  poetic  impulse, 
393  ;  sincerity  and  conscience 
in,  394  ;  imagination  in,  397  ; 
Zoroaster's  definition  of,  398  ; 
originality  in,  419 

Pollock,    Walter,    contributor    to 
'  Examiner,'  184 

Pope,  Alexander,  periwig  poetry 
of,  25 

'  Poppyland,'  Watts-Dunton  visits, 
270 

Portraiture,  ethics  of,  141,  143 

'  Prayer  to  the  Winds,'  81 

Pre-Raphaelite  movement,  defini- 
tion of,  16;  poets,  160-61 

Primitive  poetry,  15 

Prinsep,    Val,    his    vindication    of 

Rossetti,  145 
Prize-fighters,  gypsy,  392 
Prose,  poetic,  339:     see  also  '  Ayl- 
win,' Bible  Rhythm,  Common 
Prayer,     Book     of ;     Litany  ; 
Manu  ;  Ruskin 


472 


Index 


Psalms,  Watts-Dunton  on,  228-41 
Publicity,  evils  of,  262 
Purnell,     Thomas,     acquaintance 
with  J.  O,  Watts,  59 

Queen  [Katherine,  Watts's  sonnet 

on  Ellen  Terry  as,  122 
Quickly,  Mrs,  382 

Rabelais,  196-200,  387 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  423 ;  on 
'  command   of    the  sea,'  427 

Rappel,  Le,  123 

Reade  Charles,  325,  348  ;  hardness 
of  touch,  351 

Reid,  Sir  Wemyss,  185 

<  Relapse,  The,'  259 

Relative  humour :  see  Humour, 
absolute  and  relative 

Religion,  Renascence  of  Wonder 
in,  375  ;  poetic,  455 

'  Reminiscence  of  Open-Air  Plays, 
Epilogue,'  133  _ 

Renascence,  decorative,  connection 
with  pre  -  Raphaelite  move- 
ment, 16 

Renascence,  Jewish-Arabian,  con- 
nection with  instinct  of 
wonder,  14 

Renascence  of  religion,  22 

Renascence  of  Wonder,  exemplified 
in  '  Aylwin,'  2 ;  origin  of 
phrase,  1 1  ;  meaning  of  phrase, 
I3>  I7>  374;  French  Revolu- 
tion, cause  of,  13 ;  pre- 
Raphaelite  movement,  connec- 
tion writh,  16 ;  Watts-Dunton's 
article  on,  20,  25  ;  in  Philistia, 
327,  328;  in  religion,  22, 
375  ;  '  Coming  of  Love,  The,' 
the  most  powerful  expres- 
sion of,  25  ;  Watts-Dunton's 
Treatise  on  Poetry,  257 ; 
'  Aylwin,'  passages  on,  446  ; 
references  to,  9,  325 
Repartee,  comedy  of,  259 


Representation,  imaginative,  398 

Rhetoric,  Poetry  and,  340 

'  Rhona's  Letter,'  402 

Rhyme  colour,  412 

Rhys,  Ernest,  '  Aylwin  '  dedicated 
to,  312  ;  '  Song  of  the  Wind,' 
paraphrase  by,  313,  377 

Rhythm,  239,  412 :  see  Bible 
Rhythm 

Richardson,  367 

Richmond  Park,  Borrow  in,  100 

Ripon,  Lady,  91 

'  Rip  Van  Winkle,'  121 

'  Rivista  d'ltalia ' :  see  Galimberti, 
Madame 

'  Robinson  Crusoe,'  307 

Robinson,  F.  W.,  12 

Robson,  actor,  J.  O.  Watts's  ad- 
miration for,  57;   127,  129 

Rogers,  S.,  39 

'  Roi  s'Amuse,  Le,'  123 

Romanies,  Gorgios  and,  389 ;  see 
Gypsies 

Romantic  movement,  16-25 
'  Romany  Rye,'  367 
'  Romeo  and  Juliet,'  293 
'  Rose  Mary,'  Watts-Dunton's  ad- 
vice to  Rossetti  concerning,  1 39 
Rosicrucian  Christmas,  94 
Rossetti,    Dante    Gabriel,    i,     2; 
Watts-Dunton  on,  17,  18,  19, 
21  ;    '  Spirit  of  Wonder  '  ex- 
pressed by,  18,  19  ;  '  Pandora,' 
21  ;  Poems  of,  lack  of  humour 
in,  24  ;  '  Watts's  magnificent 
Star  Sonnet,'  his  appreciation 
of,     29 ;      Omar     Khayyam, 
translation  discovered  by,  79  ; 
Cheyne  Walk  reunions,   137  ; 
Watts-Dunton,   affection   for, 
138-69;    Watts-Dunton's  in- 
fluence on,  139,  140,  149,  150, 
154;    type  of  female  beauty 
invented    by,     140 ;       dies  in 
Watts-Dunton's    arms,     150 
illness  of,  anecdote  concerning 


Index 


473 


153  ;  Watts  Dunton's  elegy 
on,  157  ;  Cheyne  Walk  green 
dining-room,  description,  161  ; 
Watts-Dunton's  description  of 
his  house,  165-69  ;  '  Spirit  of 
the  Rainbow,'  illustration  to, 
276 ;  references  to,  9,  10,  27, 
35,  262,  263 

Watts-Dunton's      reminiscences 
of  :— 

at  Marston  symposia ;  the 
Gallic  Parnassians  ;  he  advises 
the  bardlings  to  write  in 
French,  136  ;  interest  in  work 
of  others  ;  reciting  a  bardling's 
sonnet,  137  ;  wishes  Watts  to 
write  his  life,  140 ;  letter  to 
author  about  Rossetti,  140 ; 
Charles  Augustus  Howell  (De 
Castro),  Rossetti's  opinion  of, 
142 ;  portrait  as  D'Arcy 
in  '  Aylwin  ' ;  ot  idealized  ; 
ethics  of  portraiture  of  friend  ; 
amazing  detraction  of,  144 ; 
too  much  written  about  him, 
145  ;  relations  with  his  wife  ; 
Val  Prinsep's  testimony,  145  ; 
'  lovable — most  lovable,'  145  ; 
dies  in  Watts's  arms,  150;  a 
pious  fraud,  153  ;  alleged 
rudeness  to  Princess  Louise, 
155  ;  attitude  to  a  disgraced 
friend,  210;  the  dishonest 
critic ;  '  By  God,  if  I  met 
such  a  man,'  211  ;  a  generous 
gift,  267  ;  dislike  of  publicity  ; 
abashed  by  an  '  Athenaeum  ' 
paragraph,  263 

Rossetti,  W.  M.,  149,  154 

Rossetti,  Mrs.  W.  M.,  275 

Rous,  232 

Ruskin,  340 

Russell,  Lord  John,  295 

Ryan,  W.  P.,  378 

Sancho  Panza,  382 


St.  Aldegonde,  Disraeli's '  softness  of 
touch'  in,  351 

St,  Francis  of  Assisi,  38 

St.  Ives,  birthplace  of  Watts-Dun- 
ton,  26  ;  old  Saxon  name  for, 
35  ;  printing  press  at,  40 ; 
Union  Book  Club,  Watts- 
Dunton's  speech  at,  42  ;  His- 
tory of,  51  ;  East  Anglian 
sympathies  of,  78 

St.  Peter's  Port,  visit  of  Swinburne 
and  Watts-Dunton  to,  268 

Sainte-Beuve,  Watts-Dunton  com- 
pared to,  2 ;  399 

Sais,  331 

Sampson,    Mr.,    Romany   scholar, 

367 

Sandys,  Frederick,  267 

Sark,  Swinburne  and  Watts-Dun- 
ton's visit  to,  269 

'  Saturday  Review,'  34,  245,  257, 
382 

Savile  Club,  202 

Schiller,  221 

'  Scholar  Gypsy,  The,'  108 

Schopenhauer,  247 

Science,  Watts-Dunton's  speech  on, 
42-9 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  tribute  to,  220, 
221,  307;  'softness  of  touch' 
in  portraiture,  350 ;  367 

Scott,  William  Bell,  anecdote  of, 
184 

'Semaine  Litteraire,  La,'  347,  374 

Sex,  witchery  of,  391 

'  Shadow  on  the  Window  Blind,' 
164 :  first  printed  in  Mac- 
kenzie Bell's  Study  of  Watts- 
Dunton  in  '  Poets  and  Poetry 
of  the  Century,'  q.v. 

Shakespeare,  spirit  of  wonder  in, 
16;  126;  186;  293;  richness 
in    style,    328;   394 

'  Shales  mare,'  106 

Sharp  William,  29  ;  scenery  and  at- 
mosphere of '  Aylwin,'  72,  75  ; 


474 


Index 


276,  284  ;  influence  of  Watts- 
Dunton  on  Rossetti,  399 

Shaw,  Byam,  '  Brynhild  on 
Sigurd's  Funeral  Pyre,'  illus- 
tration of,  366 

Shaw,  Dr,  Norton,  intimacy  with 
J.  K.  Watts,  52 

Shelley,  293  ;  '  Epipsychidion,'  419 

Shintoism,  14 

Shirley  :  see  Skelton,  Sir  John 

Shirley  Essays,  202 

'  Shirley,'  Watts-Dunton's  criti- 
cism of,  365 

Shorter,  Clement,  his  connection 
with  Slepe  Hall,  35 

Sibilant,  in  poetry,  286-88 

Sidestrand,  visit  of  Swinburne  and 
Watts-Dunton  to,  269 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  365 

'  Sigurd,'  176;  366 

'  Silas  Marner,'  public-house  scene 

in,  387 

Skeleton,  the  Golden,  422  et  seq. 

Skelton,  Sir  John,  his  '  Comedy  of 
the  Noctes  Ambrosian^,' 
Watts-  Dunton's  review  of, 
190-201  ;  Rossetti  '  Remini- 
scences,' 202  ;  Watts-Dunton's 
friendship  with,  202 

Sleaford,  Lord,  353 

Slepe  Hall,  Clement  Shorter's 
connection  with,  35  ;  story 
told  in  connection  with,  36 

Sly,  Christopher,  388 

Smalley,  G.  W.,  his  article  on 
Whistler,  302 

Smart  set,  353 

'  Smart  slating,'  Watts-Dunton  on, 
207  ■ 

Smetham,  James :  see  Wilder- 
spin 

Smith,  Alexander,  44 ;  Herbert 
Spencer  and,  213 

Smith,  Gypsy,  351 

Smith,  Sydney,  43,  196 

Smollett,  304,  367 


Snowdon,  315 

Socrates,  45 

'  Softness  of  touch  '  in  fiction,  350 

Sonnet,  The,  Essay  on,  reference 
to,  205 

Sophocles,  323,  394 

Sothern,  118 

Spencer,  Herbert,  Alexander 
Smith  and,  '  Athenaeum  ' 
anecdote,  212-14 

Spenser,  Edmund,  Spirit  of  Won- 
der in  poetry  of,  16 

Spirit  of  Place,  26 

'  Spirit  of  the  Sunrise,'  450 

Sport,  definition  of,  68 

Sports,  field,  65 

Squeezing  of  books,  191 

Stael,  Madame  de,  her  struggle 
against  tradition  of  i8th  cen- 
tury, 18 

Stanley,  Fenella,  362,  363 

Stead,  William  Morris  and,  181 

Stedman,  Clarence,  his  remarks  on 
'The  Coming  of  Love,' 4, 10, 
301    _ 

Sterne,  his  humour,  246-55  ;  his 
indecencies,  253  ;  his  '  soft- 
ness of  touch,'  350  ;    367,  387 

Sternhold,  229 

Stevenson,  R.  L.,  Watts-Dunton's 
criticism  of  '  Kidnapped  '  and 
'Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,' 
215-21  ;  letter  from,  216 

Stillman,  Mrs.,  Rossetti's  picture 
painted  from,  172 

Stone,  E.  D.,  "  Christmas  at  the 
'  Mermaid,"  Latin  translation 

by, 147 

'  Stories  after  Nature,' Wells's,  53- 

55  _ 

Stourbridge  Fair,  65 

Stratford-on-Avon,  Watts-Dun- 
ton's poems  on,  31,  32  ; 
see  also  "  Christmas  at  the 
'Mermaid,'"  423 

Stress  in  poetry,  344 


Index 


475 


Strong,  Prof.  A.  S.,  references  to, 
l,;^5,  132;  article  on  'The 
Coming  of  Love,'  444  ;   445 

Style,  the  Great,  234 

Sufism,  449  ;  in  '  Aylwin,'  454 

Sully,  Professor,  contributor  to 
'  Examiner,'  184 

Sunrise,  Poet  of  the,  398 

Sunsets,  in  the  Fens,  62 

Surtees,  367 

Swallow  Falls,  315 

Swift,  his  humour  the  opposite  of 
Sterne's,  250 

Swinburne,  Algernon  Charles,  ac- 
quaintance with  J.  O.  Watts, 
58 ;  intercourse  and  friend- 
ship with  Watts-Dunton,  89, 
268-74  ;  '  Jubilee  Greeting  ' 
dedicated  to,  273 ;  partly 
identified  with  Percy  Aylwin, 
see  description  of  his  swim- 
ming, 268  ;  279-84  ;  at  The- 
atre Fran^aise,  124 ;  dedica- 
tions to  Watts-Dunton,  271, 
272  ;  newspaper,  offensive 
caricatures  of,  263 ;  cham- 
pionship of  Meredith,  284 ; 
on  '  Tom  Jones,'  '  Waverley,' 
'  Aylwin,'  346  ;  on  '  Aylwin,' 
363  ;  references  to,  i,  12,  27, 
123,  147,  170,  180,   181,  184, 

328,413 
Anecdotes  of  : — 

chambers  in  Great  James  St., 
89 ;  life  at  '  The  Pines,'  262 
et  seq. ;  the  great  Swinburne 
myth,  263  ;  the  American  lady 
journalist,  264  ;  an  imaginary 
interview,  265  ;  an  unlovely 
bard  ;  painfully  '  afflated  '  ; 
method  of  composition ; 
'  stamping  with  both  feet,' 
265 ;  friendship  with  Watts 
began  in  1872,  268  ;  insepar- 
able since ;  housemates  at 
*  The  Pines ' ;  visit  to  Channel 

W.-D. 


Islands ;  swimming  in  Petit 
Bot  Bay,  268  ;  Sark  ; '  Orion  ' 
Home's  bravado  challenge, 
269  ;  visits  Paris  for  Jubilee 
of  Le  Roi  s'Amuse,  269 ; 
swimming  at  Sidestrand;  meets 
Grant  Allen,  269  ;  visits  East- 
bourne, Lancing,  Isle  of  Wight, 
Cromer,  270  ;  visits  to  Jowett ; 
Jowett's  admiration  of  Watts, 
279 ;  Balliol  dinner  parties, 
280 ;  at  the  Bodleian,  282  ; 
great  novels  which  are  popular, 

273 ; 

Swinburne,  Miss,  299 
Symons,  Arthur, '  Coming  of  Love,' 
article  on,  257 

Tabley,  Lord  de,  277 
Taine,  232 

Taliesin, '  Song  of  the  Wind,'-'3I3 
Talk  on  Waterloo  Bridge,'  'A,  116 
Tate  and  Brady,  232 
Telepathy,  dogs  and,  82-6        [270 
Temple,  Lord  and  Lady  Mount, 
Tenderness,  in  English  hero,  365 
'  Tennyson,  Alfred,  Birthday  Ad- 
dress,' 32 
'  Tennyson,    Alfred,'    sonnet    to, 

286 
Tennyson,  Lord,  4,  32,  144 ;  dis- 
honest criticism,  opinion  of, 
211;  Watts-Dunton's  friend- 
ship with,  285  ;  Watts-Dun- 
ton's criticism  of  and  essays  on, 
289,  290  ;  '  Memoir,'  Watts- 
Dunton's  contribution,  291  ; 
anecdotes  concerning,  287- 
89 ;  '  The  Princess,'  defects 
of,  290 ;  portraits  of,  Watts- 
Dunton's  articles  on,  290 ; 
'  Maud,'  compared  with  Rhona 
Boswell,  413 
Watts-Dunton  and  : — 

sympathy  between  him  and, 
285  ;  sonnet  on  birthday,  286 ; 
32 


476 


Index 


meeting  at  garden  party ; 
open  invitation  to  Aldwortli 
and  Farringford  ;  his  ear  not 
defective,  286 ;  sensibility  to 
delicate  metrical  nuances,  287; 
challenges  a  sibilant  in  a  son- 
net, 287  ;  ' scent '  better  than 
'  scents,'  287 ;  his  morbid 
modesty,  288 ;  a  poet  is  not 
born  to  the  purple,  288 ; 
reading  '  Becket '  in  summer- 
house  ;  desired  free  criticism, 
288 ;  alleged  rudeness  to 
women,  289 ;  detraction  of,  289 ; 
could  not  invent  a  story,  289  ; 
the  nucleus  of  '  Maud,'  289 

Terry,  Ellen,  Watts  -  Dunton's 
friendship  vv^ith,  117,  121; 
sonnet  on,  122 

Thackeray,  295,  305,  325,  328; 
'  softness  of  touch,'  350-53 

Theatre  Fran^aise,  Swinburne  and 
Watts  at,   123  ;  129 

Thicket,  The,  St.  Ives,  30,  32 

Thoreau,  teaching,  of  69  ;  love  of 
wind,  371  ;  442 

Tieck,  19 

'  Times,'  89,  245,  301,  370 

Toast  to  Omar  Khayyam,  79 

Tooke,  Home,  39 

'  T.  P.'s  Weekly,'  89 

Tourneur,  Cyril,  '  spirit  of  won- 
der '  in,  16 

Traill,  H.  D.,  his  criticism,  207  ; 
Watts-Dunton's  meeting  with, 
243  ;  review  of  his  '  Sterne,' 
246-55;  his  letter  to  MacCoU, 
243 ;  meets  him  at  dinner, 
243  ;  picturesque  appear- 
ance ;  boyish  lisp  ;  calls 
at  *The  Pines';  interesting 
figures  at  his  gatherings ;  '  a 
man  of  genius  ' ;  asks  Watts 
to  write  for  '  Literature  ' ; 
his  geniality  as  an  editor,  244  ; 
why  '  Literature  '  failed,  245 


'  Travailleurs  de  la  Mer,  Les,'  370 

'  Tribute,  The,'  289 

'  Tristram  of  Lyonesse,'  dedicated 

to  Watts-Dunton,  272 
Troubadours  and  Trouveres,  The 

204 
Turner,  299 

'  Under  the  Greenwood  Tree, 
rustic  humour  of,  186 

'  Ups  and  Downs  of  an  Old  Nun- 
nery, 53 

Vacquerie,  Auguste,  '  Le  Roi 
s' Amuse  '  produced  by,  123 

Vanbrugh,  Watts-Dunton's  article 
on,  258 

Vaughan,  his  '  Hours  with  the 
Mystics,'  58 

'  Veiled  Queen,  The,'  57,  229,  374, 

375 
Vernunft  of   Man,  the  Bible  and 

the,  230 
Verse,  English,  accent  in,  344 
Vezin,  Hermann,  118 
Victoria,   Queen,  Watts-Dunton's 

tribute  to,  274 
Villain    in    Hugo's    novels,    125  ; 

'  Aylwin  '  a  novel  without  a, 

349 
Villon,  388 

Virgil,  wonder  in,  15  ;  208 
Vision,  absolute  and  relative,  354 ; 

in  '  Aylwin,'  357  et  seq. 
'  Vita  Nuova,'  412 
Voltaire,  259 

Wagner,  89,  412 

Wahrheit  and  Dichtung,  in  '  Ayl- 
win,' 50 

Wales,  Watts-Dunton's  sympathy 
with,  312  ;  popularity  of '  Ayl- 
win '  in,  314  ;  descriptions  of, 
315,  317,  318;  Welsh  accent, 
319-20 

Wales,  Prince  of,  anecdote  of,  G-j 


Index 


477 


Warburton,  69 

'  Wassail  Chorus,'  438 

Waterloo  Bridge,  Borrow  on,  115 

Watson,  William,  Grant  Allen  on, 
207 

Watts,  A.  E.,  Watts- Dunton's 
brother,  articled  as  solicitor, 
72  ;  Cyril  Aylwin,  identifica- 
tion with,  87;  his  humour, 
88  ;   death,  89 

Watts,  G.  F,,  Rossetti's  portrait  by, 
161 

Watts,  J.  K.,  Watts-Dunton's 
father,  account  of,  50,  53  ; 
scientific  celebrities,  intimacy 
with,  50-53  ;  scientific  repu- 
tation of,  52 

Watts,  James  Orlando,  Watts- 
Dunton's  uncle,  identity  of 
character  with  Philip  Aylwin, 
51,  56-60  [160 

Watts,  William  K.,  description  of, 

Watts-Dunton,  Theodore,  me- 
moirs of,  4 ;  monograph 
on,  reply  to  author's  sugges- 
tion to  write,  6,  7  ;  descrip- 
tions of,  171,  278 
Boyhood  : — 

birthplace,  26;  Cromwell's 
elder  wine,  37 ;  Cambridge 
school-days,  37,  66 ;  St.  Ives 
Union  Book  Club,  speech 
delivered  at,  15,  42-49 ; 
family  of  Dunton,  53;  father 
and  son — the  double  brain, 
53-5  ;  interest  in  sport  and 
athletics,  65  ;  Deerfoot  and 
the  Prince  of  Wales,  6j ; 
period  of  Nature  study,  67  ; 
articled  to  solicitor,  72 
Life    in    London  : — 

solicitor's  practice,  88  ; 
life  at  Sydenham,  89 ;  Lon- 
don Society,  89,  353  ;  interest 
in  slum-life,  92  ;  connection 
with  theatrical  world,  117-35 


Characteristics  : — 

Love  of  animals,  38,  39, 
82-85 ;  conversational  powers, 
183  ;  genius  for  friendship, 
443 ;  indifference  to  fame, 
3,  183,  204 ;  habit  of  early 
rising,  279 ;  influence,  i,  2, 
22,  452 ;  dual  personality, 
322,  356 ;  music,  love  of, 
89 ;  natural  science,  profi- 
ciency in,  38 ;  optimism, 
9,  457 ;  identification  with 
Henry  Aylwin,  356  ;  Romany 
blood  in,  361 

Writings  : — 

'  Academy,'  invitation  to 
write  for,  187  ;  '  Athenaeum,' 
invitation  to  vrnte.  for,  188, 
202  ;  contributions  to,  I,  55, 
170,  173,  189-201,  204; 
his  treatise  on  Sonnet — Dr. 
Karl  Leutzner  on,  205  ;  critical 
principles,  205  ;  '  Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica '  articles,  i, 
2,  4,  6,  205,  256  ;  340,  393, 
258  ;  'Examiner'  art.,  184; 
see  also  Minto 

Critical  Work  : — 

Swinburne's  opinion  of,  i  ; 
character  of,  8,  205-208  ;  criti- 
cal and  creative  work,  relation 
between,  203  ;  critical  and 
imaginative  work  interwoven, 
370 ;  School  of  Criticism 
founded,  4 ;  Essays  on  Tenny- 
son, 290 

Dramatic  Criticism  : — 
119,  120,  121,  123-30 

Poetry  : — 

2,4.15,393-441 

Prose  Writings : — 

character  of,  2,  321-25, 
327-92,  350,453;  richness  of 
style,  329,330,331,333,336; 
unity  of  his  writings,  445 


478 


Index 


American  friends  of,  295-311  ; 

Gypsies,     description     of     first 
meeting  with,  61 

Friends,  Reminiscences  of : — 
Appleton,  Prof  :  at  Bell 
Scott's  and  Rossetti's  ;  Hegel 
on  the  brain  ;  asks  Watts  to 
write  for  'Academy,'  187; 
wants  him  to  pith  the  German 
transcendentalists  in  two 
columns,  188  ;  in  a  rage ;  Watts 
explains  why  he  has  gone  into 
enemy's  camp,  201  ;  a  Philis- 
tine, 202 

Black,  William  :  doubles ; 
resemblance  to  Watts,  185  ; 
meeting  at  Justin  McCarthy's, 
186;  Watts  mistaken  for 
Black,  186 

Borrow,  George  :  his  first 
meeting  with,  95  ;  his  shy- 
ness, 99  ;  Watts  attacks  it  ; 
tries  Bamfylde  Moore  Carew  ; 
then  tries  beer,  the  British 
bruiser,  philology,  Ambrose 
Gwinett,  etc.,  100 ;  a  stroll 
in  Richmond  Park ;  visit  to 
'  Bald-faced  Stag  ' ;  Jerry 
Abershaw's  sword  ;  his  gigan- 
tic green  umbrella,  101-102  ; 
tries  Whittlesea  Mere  ;  Bor- 
row's  surprise  ;  vipers  of  Nor- 
man Cross ;  Romanies  and 
vipers,  104  ;  disclaims  taint  of 
printers' ink  ;  '  Who  are  you  ?  ' 
105  ;  an  East  Midlander  ;  the 
Shales  Mare,  106 ;  Cromer 
sea  best  for  swimming  ;  rain- 
bow reflected  in  Ouse  and 
Norfolk  sand,  106 ;  goes  to 
a  gypsy  camp ;  talks  about 
Matthew  Arnold's  '  Scholar- 
Gypsy,'  108  ;  resolves  to  try 
it  on  gypsy  woman  ;  watches 
hawk  and  magpie,  109  ;  meets 
Perpinia  Boswcll ;   '  the  popa- 


lated  gypsy  of  Codling  Gap,' 
no;  Rhona  Boswell,  girl  of 
the  dragon  flies ;  the  sick 
chavo  ;  forbids  Pep  to  smoke, 
112;  description  of  Rhona, 
113;  the  Devil's  Needles ; 
reads  Glanville's  story  ;  Rhona 
bored  by  Arnold,  114  ;  hatred 
of  tobacco,  115  ;  last  sight  of 
Borrow  on  Waterloo  Bridge, 
115  ;  sonnet  on,  116 

Brown,  Madox:  10,12,35, 
136,  170;  anecdote  about 
portrait  of,  274 

Brown,  Oliver  Madox  : 
his  novel,  274-6 

Browning  :  Watts  chaffs 
him  in  '  Athenaeum' ;  chided 
by  Swinburne,  222,  223-27 ; 
sees  him  at  Royal  Academy 
private  view  ;  Lowell  advises 
him  to  slip  away  ;  bets  he 
will  be  more  cordial  than  ever ; 
Lowell  astonished  at  his 
magnanimity,  222-23  5  ^^^ 
review  in  question,  '  Ferish- 
tah's  Fancies,'  223-26 

Harte,  Bret  :  Watts's  esti- 
mate of,  302-1 1  ;  histrionic 
gifts,  302  ;  meeting  with ; 
drive  round  London  music 
halls,  303  ;  '  Holborn,'  '  Ox- 
ford '  ;  Evans's  supper-rooms ; 
Paddy  Green ;  meets  him 
again  at  breakfast ;  a  fine 
actor  lost,  303 

Groome,  Frank  :  a  lun- 
cheon at  '  The  Pines,'  79  ; 
'  Old  Fitz  '  ;  patted  on  the 
head  by,  79 ;  see  also  50,  68, 
72,285,351,364,367,372,420 

Hake,  Gordon  :  Intro- 
duces Borrow,  95  ;  see  '  New 
Day  ' ;  physician  to  Rossetti 
and  to  Lady  Ripon,  90-91 

Lowell,    James    Russell  : 


Index 


479 


meets  him  at  dinner,  295 ; 
he  attacks  England  ;  directs 
diatribe  at  Watts ;  he  retorts ; 
a  verbal  duel,  296 ;  recogni- 
tion ;  cites  Watts's  first  article, 
298  ;  his  anglophobia  turns 
into  anglomania,  299 ;  likes 
English  climate,  300 

Marston,  Westland  :  sym- 
posia at  Chalk  Farm  ;  famous 
actors  and  actresses,  117 ; 
table  talk  about  '  The  Bells ' 
and  '  Rip  Van  Winkle,'  1 19 ;  on 
staff  of  '  Examiner,'  184  ;  the 
sub-Swinburnians  at  the  Mar- 
ston mornings ;  the  divine 
Theophile ;  the  Gallic  Par- 
nassus, 136 

Meredith,  George  :  6,  283, 
284,  325,  328,  417,  418 

MiNTo,  Prof.  :  neighbours 
in  Danes  Inn ;  editing 
'  Examiner  ' ;  secures  Watts  ; 
first  article  appears ;  Bell 
Scott's  party  ;  Scott  virants  to 
know  name  of  new  writer,  184  ; 
Watts  slates  himself,  185  ; 
Minto's  Monday  evening 
symposia,  185 

Morris,  William  :  Mar- 
ston mornings  at  Chalk  Farm  ; 
'  nosey  Latin,'  136  ;  Wednes- 
day evenings  at  Danes  Inn  ; 
Swinburne,  Watts,  Marston, 
Madox  Brown  and  Morris, 
170;  at  Kelmscott,  170; 
passion  for  angling,  171  ;  snor- 
ing of  young  owls,  171  ; 
causeries  at  Kelmscott,  173  ; 
the  only  reviews  he  read,  173  ; 
the  little  carpetless  room, 
175  ;  writes  750  lines  in 
twelve  hours,  176  ;  the  crib  on 
his  desk,  177  ;  offers  to  bring 
out  an  edition-de-luxe  of 
Watts's    poems ;     gets    sub- 


scribers ;  a  magnificent  royalty, 
179  ;  presentation  copies ; 
extravagant  generosity  ;  '  All 
right,  old  chap  ' ;  '  Ned  Jones 
and  I,'  180  ;  '  Algernon  pay 
j^io  for  a  book  of  mine  !  '  181 ; 
disgusted  with  Stead,  the 
music-hall  singer  and  dancer  ; 
'  damned  tomfoolery,'  181 

RossETTi,  Dante  Gabriel  : 
at  Marston  symposia ;  the 
Gallic  Parnassians ;  he  advises 
the  bardlings  to  write  in 
French,  136  ;  interest  in  work 
of  others ;  reciting  a  bardling's 
sonnet,  137  ;  wishes  Watts  to 
write  his  life,  140 ;  letter  to 
author  about  Rossetti,  140  ; 
Charles  Augustus  Howell  (De 
Castro),  Rossetti's  opinion  of, 
142 ;  portrait  as  D'Arcy  in 
'  Aylwin  ' ;  not  idealized  ; 
ethics  of  portraiture  of 
friend  ;  amazing  detraction  of, 

144  ;  too  much  written  about 
him,  145  ;  relations  vnth  his 
wife  ;  Val  Prinsep's  testimony, 

145  ;  '  lovable,  most  lovable,' 
145  ;  dies  in  Watts's  arms, 
150;  a  pious  fraud,  153; 
alleged  rudeness  to  Princess 
Louise,  155  ;  attitude  to  a 
disgraced  friend,  210 ;  the 
dishonest  critic  ;  '  By  God,  if 
I  met  such  a  man,'  211  ;  a 
generous  gift,  267  ;  dislike  of 
publicity ;  abashed  by  an 
'  Athenseum  '   paragraph,  263 

Swinburne  Algernon 

Charles  :  James  Orlando 
Watts  and,  58  ;  chambers  in 
Great  James  Street,  89  ; 
life  at  '  The  Pines,'  262  et 
seq  ;  offensive  newspaper 
caricature  of,  263  ;  the  great 
Swinburne   myth,   263 ;    the 


480 


Index 


American  lady  journalist,  264  ; 
an  imaginary  interview,  265  ; 
an  unlovely  bard ;  painfully 
'  afflated  ' ;  method  of  com- 
position ;  'stamping  with  both 
feet,'  265  ;  friendship  with 
Watts  began  in  1872,  268  ; 
inseparable  since ;  housemates 
at  'The  Pines';  visit  to  Channel 
Islands  ;  swimming  in  Petit 
Bot  Bay,  268  ;  Sarlc ;  '  Orion  ' 
Home's  bravado  challenge, 
269  ;  visits  Paris  for  Jubilee 
of  Le  Roi  s' Amuse,  269 ; 
swimming  at  Sidestrand ; 
meets  Grant  Allen,  269  ;  visits 
Eastbourne,  Lancing,  Isle  of 
Wight,  Cromer,  270  ;  sonnet 
to  Watts,  271  ;  dedicates 
'  Tristram  of  Lyonesse '  to 
Watts,  272  ;  also  Collected 
Edition  of  Poems,  272  ;  visits 
to  Jowett ;  Jowett's  admira- 
tion of  Watts,  279 ;  Balliol 
dinner  parties,  280 ;  at  the 
Bodleian,  282 ;  great  novels 
which  are  popular,  273  ;  cham- 
pions Meredith,  284 

Tennyson,  Alfred  :  friend- 
ship with,  285  ;  sympathy 
between  him  and,  285  ;  sonnet 
on  birthday,  286  ;  meeting  at 
garden  party ;  open  invitation 
to  Aldworth  and  Farringford  ; 
his  ear  not  defective,  286  ; 
sensibility  to  delicate  metrical 
nuances,  287 ;  challenges  a 
sibilant  in  a  sonnet,  287 ; 
'  scent '  better  than  '  scents,' 
287 ;  his  morbid  modesty, 
288  ;  a  poet  is  not  born  to  the 
purple,  288  ;  reading  '  Becket' 
in  summer-house  ;  desired 
free  criticism,  288  ;  alleged 
rudeness  to  women,  289 ; 
detraction  of,  289  ;   could  not 


invent  a  story,  289 ;  the 
nucleus  of  '  Maud,'  289  ;  his 
articles  on  portraits  of,  290 

Traill,  H.  D.  :  reviews  his 
'  Sterne  ' ;  his  letter  to  Mac- 
Coll,  243  ;  meets  him  at 
dinner,  243  ;  picturesque 
appearance  ;  boyish  lisp  ;  calls 
at  '  The  Pines ' ;  interesting 
figures  at  his  gatherings ;  '  a 
man  of  genius ' ;  asks  Watts 
to  write  for  '  Literature  '  ; 
his  geniality  as  an  editor,  244 ; 
why  '  Literature  '  failed,  245 

Whistler,  J.  McNeill  : 
Cyril  Aylwin  not  a  portrait  of, 
88  ;  anecdotes  of  De  Castro, 
142 ;  neighbour  of  Rossetti, 
156;  close  friendship  with 
Watts,  301  ;  hostility  to  Royal 
Academy,  301-2  ;  his  first 
lithographs,  301-2 ;  engaged 
with  Watts  on  '  Piccadilly,' 
301,  353;  'To  Theodore 
Watts,  the  Worldling,'  353 

Watts-Dunton,    Theodore,    Swin- 
burne's sonnets  to,  271,  272 

Way,   T.,    Whistler's    first    litho- 
graphs, 301,  302 

Webster,  '  Spirit  of  Wonder '  in,  16 

Wells,  Charles,  53-55 

'  Westminster  Abbey,  In  '  (Burial 
of  Tennyson),  291 

'W.  H.  Mr.,'  424-26 

'  What  the  Silent  Voices  said,'  291 

Whewell,    intimacy    with    J.    K. 
Watts,  52 

Whistler,  J.  McNeill 

Cyril  Aylwin  not  a  portrait 
of,  88  ;  anecdotes  of  De  Castro, 
142 ;  neighbour  of  Rossetti, 
156;  close  friendship  with 
Watts,  301  ;  his  first  litho- 
graphs, 301-2  ;  hostility  to 
Royal  Academy,   301-2 ;  en- 


Index 


481 


gaged  with  Watts  on  '  Picca- 
dilly,' 301,  353;  'To  Theo- 
dore WattSjthe  Worldling,'  353 

Whiteing,  Richard,  364 

'  White  Ship,  The,'  153,  154 

Whittlesea  Mere,  104 

Whyte-Melville,  352,  367 

Wilderspin,  331 :  see  Smetham, 
James 

Wilkie,  his  realism,  humour  of,  387 

Wilson,  Professor,  Watts-Dunton's 
essay  on  his  '  Noctes  Am- 
brosianae,'  190-201 

Williams,  '  Scholar,'  contributor  to 
'  Examiner,'  184 

Williams,    Smith,    275 

Willis,  Parker,  264 

Wimbledon  Common,  Borrow  and, 
loi  ;  Watts-Dunton  and,  279 

Wind,  love  of  the,  Thoreau's,  370, 

371 
Women,  as  actresses,  131  ;  heroic 
type  of,  365 


Wonder  :  see  Renascence  of  Won- 
der ;  Bible  as  great  book  of, 
228  ;  place  in  race  develop- 
ment, 14 

'  Wood-Haunter's  Dream,  The,' 
276 

Wordsworth,  William,  definition 
of  language,  39  ;  his  ideal  John 
Bull,  224 

Word-twisting,  325,  327 

Work,  heresy  of,  68 

'  World's  Classics,'  edition  of  '  Ayl- 
win' in,  374 

'  Wuthering  Heights,'  342,  345 

Wynne,Winifred,  character  of,  314, 
315,  363  ;  love  of  the  vnnd, 
371 

Yarmouth,  106 
Yorickism,  250 

Zoroaster,  heresy  of  work,  68  ; 
definition  of  poetry,  39S 


Butlei  &  Tanner,  The  Selwood  Printing  Works,  Frome,  and  Londea. 


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